Comic Review: I Hate This Place #6

Writer: Kyle Starks

Artist: Artyom Topilin

Colorist: Lee Loughridge

Letterer: Pat Brosseau

I Hate This Place is back! The first arc gave a refreshing mix of many horror genres, delivering a fun and exhilarating ride. Now it’s time to keep pushing the mystery forward with some new threats for our two protagonists.

Like in the very first issue, I Hate This Place opens with some crime and some foreshadowing on this arc’s (Human) antagonists. Kyle Starks doesn’t even wait for two more pages to pass by before we are treated to our monster of the month. It doesn’t take long for readers to appreciate that this series is back. The constant danger mixed with the humorous and endearing characters will remind anyone why this series is special.

While the action, scares, and laughs are plenty of reasons to stick around, Starks gives readers some backstory into Gertrude’s past. It of course deals in more horror cliches, but it also explains a lot of her actions and personality quickly. It also gives a quick explanation of the new antagonists, this time making the enemy much more personal. The stakes feel much higher this time around, making I Hate This Place much more compelling.

Artyom Topilin and Lee Loughride continue to treat readers with dynamic art full of bold lines and personality. The panel layouts of I Hate This Place might be simple, but they are easy to follow. The action flows naturally from panel to panel, making great use of the gutter space and leaving just enough movement to the reader’s imagination. The characters are wildly expressive, shining through this issue that is full of emotional trauma.

Loughridge’s colors add an incredible amount of mood and tension to the panels. Eerie greens and yellows highlight the supernatural, while brash reds and oranges add danger to the human antagonists. There is much more to the colors than just adding depth to the art, and it makes I Hate This Place a delight to look at.

Exciting sound effects fill the pages thanks to Pat Brosseau’s lettering. There aren’t too many lettering decisions regarding the word bubbles, but sometimes less is more. The onomatopoeias all work much more effectively thanks to Brosseau’s font choices, and that’s enough to add a sense of sound to I Hate This Place.