In a world divided between those who have embraced their psychopathic tendencies and those who haven’t, yet, a boy searches for his lost friend. Your Major Spoiler Review of Book of Evil #1, awaits.
BOOK OF EVIL #1
Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Jock
Editor: Will Dennis
Publisher: Best Jacket Press
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 4th, 2022
Previously in Book of Evil: Homer has only known a world of madness. Every year, more and more of his friends reach the age where they become full-grown psychopaths, an epidemic that has plagued the planet for half a century.
THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM
Book of Evil #1 opens with Homer, a young child, riding a bus to his job when the bus swerves on the road past a barrier. An old lady then threatens to chop up Homer with a pair of scissors that she pulls out. Before she can attack the bus passes back over the barrier and the woman acts normal again. It’s then revealed that Homer lives in a world many years beyond an event where most humans suddenly became unable to control their psychopathic tendencies. Everyone who doesn’t experience this change, is imprisoned. Homer then reveals that his friend Poe has gone missing and he’s been looking for him for a while. After work, Homer gets with his other friends to read a comic strip that some believe holds clues for animals to escape to a refuge. By the end of the next day, Poe learns the truth about his friend Poe as well as discovers something that will reveal even more about the world around him.
CAPTIVATING, EVEN IF IT’S NOT REALLY A COMIC
Book of Evil #1 is not necessarily a comic book. It’s more akin to an illustrated novel. Prose makes up the entirety of the storytelling here with the illustrations being used more as references to the things in the text or to highlight certain things. With that out of the way, this is still a wonderful piece of world-building and storytelling. While there are some exposition dumps here, it’s mostly reserved for the elements that are necessary to know to understand the story. Other than that, this issue does a fantastic job of showing the reader what kind of world they live in through clever use of lingo and actions and that world that’s built here wonderfully defies a lot of tropes in the dystopian genre. Scott Snyder makes a good choice in making this a first-person narrative, it allows for it to be shrouded in mystery without it coming off as being cryptic for the sake of crypticness. The one complaint I have with this issue is that the cliffhanger at the end is a bit too steep. Here the rule of “show don’t tell” is broken and the reader is just flat-out told that the thing that Homer finds is important. It felt too abrupt for an issue that had been paced out nicely to that point.
EFFECTIVE IN ITS LIMITATIONS
The obvious art in The Book of Evil #1 is fairly limited in scope. There’s a handful of illustrations of certain characters and some settings and in those cases, it’s very well done having an almost rotoscope look that utilizes stark contrasts between white and black spaces which is a bit of a hallmark of Jock’s work. What really shines here though is the flare added to the words themselves. There are multiple occasions where certain words are highlighted in different colors, or a different boldness is utilized, and when combined with the context of the story, it gives these sections far more depth than the word itself offers on its own.
BOTTOM LINE: EMBRACE THE PROSE
While Book of Evil #1 is not really a comic book as most people would probably define them, it’s still worth checking out anyways. The story being told here is interesting, is creepy in a unique way, and has plenty of possibilities in where the story can go, and the way the art is utilized here is great at showing that there are other ways that words and pictures can be combined effectively, other than panels and speech bubbles. 5 out of 5 stars.
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Book of Evil #1
Book of Evil #1 is an unsettling yet well-crafted introduction into a new world that captivates using a combination of a strong POV and sparse illustration.
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Writing10
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Art10
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Coloring10
At a young age, Jonathan was dragged to a small town in Wisconsin. A small town in Wisconsin that just so happened to have a comic book shop. Faced with a decision to either spend the humid summers and bitter winters traipsing through the pine trees or in climate controlled comfort with tales of adventure, horror, and romance, he chose the latter. Jonathan can often be found playing video games, board games, reading comics and wincing as his “to watch” list grows wildly out of control.