Mindy Morrow witnessed her lover dying in a cult ritual. Twenty-five years later, she is still trying to put the past behind her. Check out The Never Ending Party #1, a comiXology Original!

The Never Ending Party #1

Writer: Rachel Pollack and Joe Corallo
Artist: Eva Cabrera
Colorist: Constanza Oroza
Letterer: Zakk Saam
Editor: Noah Sharma
Publisher: comiXology Originals
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: June 7th, 2022

Previously in The Never Ending Party: Check out a new series from comiXology where Mindy lost her lover Lulu in a cult ritual for Dionysus. However, her frenemy Kate tries to bring her back into that old club scene that risks ancient and terrifying secrets.

GOING TOO FAR

The Never Ending Party #1 has a nonlinear storytelling pattern. The reader sees Mindy in the past, where she witnessed Lulu being eaten alive by a weird cult. Mindy also meets Kate Park, who initiated the ritual. Tommy and Flavia, amongst others, are also witnesses to the event. In the present, Mindy works as a tarot card reader, and Flavia has a restraining order on Tommy. Tommy seems to be a stalker of sorts.

Meanwhile, Mindy is called to a club by Kate, where she is hired to do readings. Mindy, though, returns home after she is seemingly drugged and is made uncomfortable. When she returns home, she sees the ghost of Lulu!

EVERYWHERE

The strength of this The Never Ending Party #1 is the color palette. The book does an excellent job switching between the past and present and mimicking the nightmare of Lulu’s death with deep reds. In the present, the color palette is calmer and more relaxed but increases in tension as the perceived danger increases.

However, the story is everywhere. The creative team uses “flashbacks” to explain situations in the present. But I had to flip pages constantly to understand which characters we were talking about. It is difficult to trace the differences in character designs within the time skips. In the flashback, people are in party outfits with certain hairstyles that didn’t carry over to the present. I was unable to easily infer who was who. Mainly because the book introduced many characters that didn’t have a single line or plot point in this particular issue.

The nonlinear storytelling was a little confusing, so I had trouble getting into the writing. There is a theme of trauma and time, but it isn’t entirely clear what lesson I should learn. This is likely due to the page count. This means this series will make more sense in the trade paperback rather than as an individual issue. Good work overall.

BOTTOM LINE: IT TAKES A COUPLE OF READS

As I read the comic multiple times, the story begins to make more and more sense. And there are great complicated ideas that I would really love to dive into. As a single issue, this isn’t a casual read, but I am optimistic that this will read better once all the issues are out. 3.5 out of 5 stars for The Never Ending Party #1.

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