Lodger #5: Empathy for the Devil (pt. 2)

How to write about the brilliance of this tangled and terminal tale of lives cutting through each other like barb wire, but not give away any crucial detail?

It’s near impossible.

Save for this. The Laphams create a story with so much truth they MUST have witnessed it take place and are just recanting events to cleanse their souls.

If not, then their brilliant minds can go to some dark places. If you thought the last issue was unflinching, nothing will prepare you for the physical and emotional brutality and harrowing details of this issue.

This is a mind-bending revelation of multilayered storytelling that David Lynch would read when he wants to be unsettled.

The art, still unmistakably David Lapham, is some of the best work of his career. Perfectly capturing the sinister undertones and the harsh and nightmarish reality that transpires behind dirty windows and widescreen doors. The art is so good that you’ll swelter in the heat of the story as the Lapham’s find multiple ways to make sure you’re uncomfortable as possible while you endure reading their work.

The use of multiple narratives, different perspectives, and tightly controlled pacing will have you rattled. Questioning your senses and instantly begging to re-read the series from issue one, panel one all over again.

The characters speak with such distinctive voices that you can’t help but look over your shoulder or out your window to see if it’s all happening over your neighbours’ fence.

The violence is shocking without being gratuitous or over the top. It only adds to the visceral experience of the whole ordeal.

Despite the darkness. The brutality. The intense trauma and hurt this issue, this series has delivered, it has not for one second been anything less than outstanding.

So sadistically and thoroughly great you may have to question your moral core after you put it down.