Comic Review: Black Stars Above Vol 1

Black Stars Above Vol 1

Vault Comics

Writer: Lonnie Nadler

Art: Jenna Cha, Brad Simpson, Hassan Ostmane-Elhaou

To approach the 1800s United States setting in the middle of the winter and to focus on a family of descendants of North America’s First Nation can sound interesting on its own. The aggressive nature of that period’s winter set in a deep forest could make for a horror like nature story. To kick it up a notch by introducing cosmic horror elements to the plot it’s plain bold. That’s what creators went for when bringing about Black Stars Above.

The story follows Eulalie Dubois a young girl who has been tending to her family matters her whole life. Always isolated in a hut outside the nearest village, helping her father with the skinning of animals for leather manufacturing, her grandfather with his injuries, and her mother with the rest of the house chores. Right away we see Eulalie is a girl ahead of her time, who wants to travel North and know places and people. She reads and writes a lot, her writing being the main device for presenting us with her thoughts and reflections. With the winter being especially rough this year and her family having little to no means to sustain themselves, Eulalie’s father reveals that he’s made a deal to marry Eulalie off and move with the rest of the family for a job. Our protagonist is clearly furious with her dad’s decision and decides she will not stand for it. Then Eulalie’s adventure actually begins as she runs away from home in the middle of a winter night to deliver a package give to her by a stranger with white spots on his face that earlier that day.

Right from the setup, Nadler’s knack for storytelling and character-building is evident. I believe I’d sympathized with Eulalie by the end of page 3 after her introduction. Not only she’s got a very strong resolve towards her life, despite living in the 1800 USA, but she’s a very righteous and fighting woman who is prepared to go to any lengths for her freedom as the book duly covers. Yet what I think is the most noteworthy aspect of this plot is how it confronts meeting the unknown in the wild with meeting the unknown in the cosmic horror sense. Eulalie knows she’s got a long hard path ahead of her if she wants to make the delivery. Because of that, she decides to push forward however she can when confronted with drawbacks being that a creepy hunter who has ill intent, a savage creature, or a hallucinatory dream of a dark moon calling to her in the middle of the night.

Jenna Cha’s line art is mesmerizing. The backgrounds are extremely high in detail and so are the facial expressions in characters which does wonder to bring about a crude organic feeling and a specific texture to every single one of this comic’s elements contributing deeply to the horror elements whenever they take the spotlight.

This book is predominantly white and black when it comes to color, not in a sense that it is simple but in a sense of contrast between two very different environments experienced by the main character one filled with the winter snow of the wild and the other with a dark mysterious glow of the night and of the unknown. That being said the book does give you a false sense of security and comfort once a scene transitions to the interior of a hut, for instance, near a lit fireplace. The drastic change from pale white to bright orange and brown really sells that warm feeling one can get when coming out of a cold weather. Another cool set up done by the predominance of the white & black is that, whenever there is an important element to this story in the scene, it is always pertinent to the story because it would indeed draw attention and drag the plot if it happened to us.

The lettering is pretty great in this book. Eulalie’s narrations is mostly portrayed by her journal so we constantly get this cursive font that stylizes the handwriting but without making it tiring (adding some crossed out bits also sells on how much we’re into this character’s story). However, one big problem for me in this book was the sudden cut to a full eight pages of a handwritten diary. Although this is relevant to the story and the font is not that bad in itself (it’s not even that different from the one used for Eulalie) I can’t see how this was the best decision for the comic. To give us full eight pages of cursive font brings the reading to a gigantic halt and can easily drive away those that have not yet been engaged.

Overall this is a powerful comic. It set a bold plot with a nice cosmic horror story and an interesting open ending to it. The artwork is damn right gorgeous all the way through and helps a lot to sell the visceral aspect of the book. If you like cosmic horror and want to try a peculiar spin to it, I’d recommend giving this a shot. The full story of Black Stars Above is due to be released on July 29. It’s a slow read with heavily eerie moments and it should impress the horror fans.