ADVANCED REVIEW: An Ancient Hunger Consumes the American West in Swallower of Shades (Spoiler-Free)

It’s rare that I find myself reacting viscerally to the necessary shock of gore in modern horror comics. As someone who grew up reading tomes of E.C. Classics, I thought that I’d seen the most shocking stories that the particular brand of pulp horror could offer. Flash forward years later and Swallower of Shades crossed my desk just to prove me wrong. With its intense but well-used bouts of gore, this story is one that induced feelings of utter disgust and unease. For better or for worse, this one-shot tale of greed, exploitation, and violence is one that modernizes the style of horror popularized in classic monster comic tales in black-and-white fashion. It even has its own cowboy version of Creepshow’s very own Creep.

Before going into the book’s fundamental successes and rough edges, it is important to note that it is rich with grotesque and triggering content. Abuse, torture, and disturbing imagery fill this book with consistent tension that isn’t for everyone. However, the team goes to extremes with tasteful intent; its darkest moments never read as mean-spirited. The team here simply wants to terrify, not antagonize.

Starting off with the general writing, J.M. Brandt is able to make the most out of the book’s one-shot format, which is both a detriment and a gift to the story’s overall flow. On the downside, there are enough ideas, characters, and stories packed into this 28-page romp to demand a more expansive page count. There isn’t too much depth to the characters or a narrative structure that gains atmosphere through looser pacing. On the same token, this issue is able to hit fast and unforgivingly in such a way that its concept gets to remain the story’s sole focus. Every page matters for moving the plot, characters, and scares forward, so there is never a dull moment to ease up on any forming tension. For those interested in the book’s splatterpunk nature, the shorter page count will do way more for you than a longer, more character-focused length would.

The aforementioned tension stems from the book’s innate makeup, making it difficult to pin down any specific reason why the story is somewhat unsettling. Unsettling detail is baked into everything from the narrative, setting, characters, and imagery in a way that’s impressive. Its murder-mystery hook is entrenched in a delightfully gross supernatural core, set within the confines of an exploitative circus with some of the most bizarre characters peppering its shadowy grounds. From that setting stems a growing paranoia that really helps bring the story home in a quite satisfying way. Its Western aesthetic makes the story’s atmosphere all the more unique.

The book does struggle with inconsistent visual storytelling that’s either absolutely immaculate with extremely creative scene transitions or difficult to follow, thanks to a pretty uneven application of the book’s black-and-white visual style. Tom Napolitano’s pencils are super solid and deliver some truly unsettling visuals, but it isn’t always stylized too well for a monotone color scheme.