Bone Orchard Mythos: The Passageway

Lemire and Sorrentino, the writer-artist team behind the horror hit Gideon Falls, reunite for another series that builds a chilling sense of dread, but have trouble anchoring it to a story. John Reed, a geologist, ventures to a remote coastal spot to study a possibly bottomless pit that’s recently formed near a lighthouse. While gauging its depths, he’s haunted by unsettling dreams about his mother, disturbing waking visions of crows and eyes, and the increasingly suspicious behavior of Sally Yandle, the stoic, antisocial lighthouse keeper. Could the pit be an opening into Hell itself, or an even more unthinkable horror? Sorrentino’s hyperrealistic, heavily photo-referenced art creates an eerie sense of heightened reality in which the crashing waves, looming lighthouse, and craggy faces of locals are as menacing as John’s blood-drenched hallucinations. The page layouts disorient effectively, with panels forming concentric circles, or toppling vertiginously down the page, with the icy landscape perpetually hovering at the close of a fog-shrouded day. Unfortunately, the truncated first installment cuts out just as the story picks up momentum, leaving questions unanswered and characters undeveloped. There’s more to come, and hopefully the next titles will build on the nihilistic horror chills set up in this opening salvo. (June)