The Silver Coin vol. 1: A Never-Ending Hunger for Pain

I’ll be the first to admit: I was skeptical of The Silver Coin when I started reading it. Anthologies are notoriously tough nuts to crack; trying to maintain a narrative and thematic through-line across multiple issues, from numerous creative voices is, in the most charitable terms, difficult at best. Historically, anthology comics rarely achieve this and are usually more than content in telling enjoyable but forgettable tales with little to no narrative cohesion. A general theme may be established depending on genre (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and so on), but all things taken equally, anthologies simply aren’t usually built to sustain overarching narratives.

Which is why The Silver Coin is something of a minor miracle.

Creator, artist (with co-colorist Toni Marie Griffin), and co-author Michael Walsh has assembled an A-list team of writers in Chip Zdarsky, Kelly Thompson, Ed Brisson, and Jeff Lemire to help him craft his tale of centuries-old horror, collected just in time for Halloween. Each issue of The Silver Coin tells the tragic tale of various holders of the eponymous cursed coin, which just like a monkey’s paw, brings greatest desires that always end in tragedy.

Given the writers’ very different styles, it could have been all too easy for each issue to feel very disjointed from the last. It also would have been easy for each issue to follow a repetitive template each issue storywise. Fortunately, with Walsh ultimately masterminding the overarching narrative, things never get that hacky or predictable. Each issue of The Silver Coin differs from the last both in terms of subject matter and the rise and fall of the action, and although the tragic endings to each issue can be foreseen generally once the basic rules of the story are established, that doesn’t mean that each issue’s climax is actually predictable. Issue two, especially (“Girls of Summer”) flips issue one’s tale of an arrogant musician (written by Zdarsky) who becomes the literal victim of his own success completely into a tale of revenge that makes victims out of protagonist and antagonists alike in very, very different ways. (Bonus: “Girls of Summer” by Kelly Thompson is an excellent riff on ’80s slasher movies.) Ed Brisson returns to his Coen Brothers-flavored small-time crime roots in issue three, and Jeff Lemire catapults the story to the far-flung future in “2467.” Finally, Walsh himself writes and draws the final, horrifying issue, revealing at last the origin of the coin and its curse. (Hint: if you’re a fan of The Witch, you won’t be disappointed.)

And miraculously, the narrative holds together throughout the anthology, despite the many different cooks in the kitchen. It certainly helps that Silver Coin is Walsh’s vision, and doesn’t hurt that he was able to recruit such a murderer’s row of talent to help him execute it. Walsh’s smooth, ever-so-slightly extranormal art helps bridge all five issues together so that even when the writers change hands, there’s a sense of continuity.

I’ll say this, though: I’m extremely glad I read this in collected form, and in one sitting. While each installment is quite strong on its own terms, reading each issue on a monthly basis as they had been released would have almost certainly detracted from the common themes resonating from issue to issue. That makes this a quintessential trade read. By closing with the coin’s origin story, Walsh smartly ties the events of the preceding four issues together in one clean narrative bow, while simultaneously leaving the door open for future volumes to come. And given the rousing creative and critical success this volume has been, it’s fair to guess that future volumes from Walsh and any other creatives he wishes to bring along for the ride are in the offing.

Take a chance on The Silver Coin. This is essential horror reading. You won’t be disappointed.