I think it’s safe to say that horror is my favorite genre.
I love mystery and crime stories. I’m a huge fan of science fiction, from hard to space opera. I can’t say no to a good Westerner, but I like them dark and weird. And there is no permutation of fantasy that I would refuse. But my heart beats for fear. The fear and thrills took me as a child.
I don’t need to fantasize about it. There’s no need to make excuses. I love horror. From the cheapest budgetless B-movies to arthouse mind vendors and big budget hits. It doesn’t have to be called anything other than worth it. Labels like “Horror Height” and genre sidestepping sidesteps, saying that it means there’s no need to use “having horror elements.” It doesn’t have to be anything but fear to tell a meaningful and good story. I argue that this is one of the very purposes of fear, and that we hold a mirror in our world to look at the darkness and potentially correct it. Like all good fairy tales and old stories.
But it’s fine if it’s just a ball-out creature feature.
“I can fix anything. Son. It’s a matter of having the right glue and a lot of patience.”
Redfolk by Alex Pacnadel, Nil Bendrell, Julia Brusco and Ryan Ferrier follows the ex-con who attempts to return his life to the small coal mining town of Redfolk, West Virginia. While dealing with family issues, an accident occurs at the town’s major mines, releasing ancient evils. A quirky hijink continues.
An interesting level of morality and ethics takes place in this story. Family loyalty, responsibility, addiction, and hidden secrets that may tear how you deal with those issues. It’s rather dark, and it highlights the falling of the Appalachian coal mines as well as the dreadful effects it will have on the community when it fades. There is a similarity between the two families regarding how lies can be used to harm or protect them. What’s thrown into it is a stranger who comes out of the mine and offers healing to everyone in the community, but it’s a pretty nasty price.
The artwork by Nil Vendrell and Giulia Brusco captures the roughness of the community incredibly well, capturing the descent into fear and more of the body. Vendrell’s style reminds me of Rafael Albukerque, Squared Off, Scratchy Carperty, and beautiful textured shadows, but with a bit more inclined to tendrils. Using a dark palette of colours, which uses dark shades of blue, red, green and brown as base, Brusco captures the town’s collapse and its unpleasant, almost sickly eerieness.
The book concludes with a letter from Ryan Ferrier. Ryan Ferrier gives one of the characters a lovely unique world balloon when the transformation into something else is complete.
“It’s our scars that connect us sometimes, Noah.”
The fun thing about Paknadel, Vendrell, Brusco, and Ferrier’s Redfork is that fear is side. He has a pleasant and kind face. It will provide a solution to your problem. And at first glance it seems to make everything better. Something very appealing in a town plagued by the heartless evil of companies in the coal mining industry. It reminds me that simple fixes may be useful in the short term, but they can be harmful in the long term. Your soul, your very humanity can be lost.
It may be that you might be best to probably try to get through your demons, accept them, and not try to erase them. Or maybe it’s a great monster story about corrupt evil that turns people into cancer realms.
Classic comics big summary: Red Folk
Red Fork
Author: Alex Paknadel
Artist: Nil Vendrell
Colorist: Julia Brusco
Letter: Ryan Ferrier
Publisher: TKO Studio
Release date: November 1, 2020
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