Dark Red #3: A Letter Home

Here’s the thing. No matter what you thought of the last issue, this issue offers something different. This series, in each of its three issues, has painted the story with a different brush. From a different point of view.

It’s a story that expands its scope from chips tiny life, to the wider vampire community, to reaching further into history. As it grows it grants the reader more appreciation for what’s come previously.

So, if you think you’ll get a continuation on Nazi-Trump-a-like Victor… you will. But not much.

You get Chip, the soldier in German-occupied France of the 40s. You get the story of a boy who made a promise. Who cherished family and stood for something more than himself?

Who, even when that self is compromised, still stands for something?

You don’t get Evie; you don’t get anybody else. You get new characters through flashback and, even though their time in the book is scant, you get your heart ripped out when they go away.

Do you know what else you get?

Great art by Corin Howell. An artist who really deserves every drop of that co-creator tag. Rooted in a cartoony style but not inhibited by it, her backgrounds and settings are detailed and exquisite.

Her emotional beats wring every last morsel of emotion from the reader.

Her horror really feels earned and when it comes all hell has been unleashed visually.

Its all backed up by some enchanting color work too that puts you right there with allied forces hunkering down in foreign territory by an open fire for the night.

The art delivers everything that the story calls for and more

The book shatters expectations and defies being pigeonholed.

The issue puts character into comics, puts priority in telling a great story, and puts the reader into a well-crafted, entertaining and gripping world.