Monthly (Comic) Book Club - October - A Walk Through Hell21207
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Monthly (Comic) Book Club - October - A Walk Through Hell Reading Schedule October 7 - 13: A Walk Through Hell 1-3 October 14 - 20: A Walk Through Hell 4-6 October 21 - 27: A Walk Through Hell 7-9 October 28 - November 3: A Walk Through Hell 10-12 Discussion topic ideas: * Thoughts on the story or artwork * Details in the story, artwork, or presentation * References to outside events or other works of fiction * Making of/Behind the Scenes details * Editions you will be reading from * Items in your collection pertaining to this week’s selection |
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 If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| A bit belated, but I read 1 through 3 last night. It starts with a mass shooting and looks to be somehow related to a series of pedophile crimes. Good times! There's also creepy stuff and a mystery, so certainly appropriate for October reading. I'll try to be on time for the next batch. | ||
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I keep meaning to throw the book in my bag to read during downtime at work but I keep forgetting it  |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| 4 through 6 go a little heavier into flashback as we try to figure out what's going on. It turns out that they tried to frame their suspect, and then murdered him but got away with it looking like a suicide. There's a Nazi story and some more creepy stuff. And despite the revelations, there's more to figure out, like if anyone will make it out of there. Also, if they'll realize that corpses don't actually grow anything. The story is engaging but I wonder how much will pay off in some way and how much is Ennis trying to be shocking. And I would say the art is effective but I'm not sure how much it's adding per se. Both of these comments seem somewhat negative, but I am fairly invested in the story. I'm looking forward to seeing how the back half turns out. |
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| Just finished 1-3 and I’m gonna finish 4-6 before bed tonight. I gotta say, I’m really enjoying the book so far. There is definitely a great sense of tension. Starting with the SWAT officers in the first issue and wondering what could’ve frightened them as they did. You then have the mystery of what happened to Shaw and McGregor. I think it’s almost certainly paranormal given their lack of pulse and of course Hunzikker’s situation but there’s also the slim chance that it’s not. I’m enjoying the layering of the current situation with the investigation, though I’m feeling a major inspiration from the film Seven. On a side note, the series was originally published in 2018 and Ennis really makes his politics known throughout the book. He’s never been shy about voicing his opinions and given the situation then (and now) I don’t think it’s out of place for the characters, especially in federal law enforcement, to hold political opinions and to talk about them here and there. |
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| I see what you mean about the focus on flashbacks in this section. I think Shaw and McGregor are actually sitting in place for maybe two issues and just walk in some general direction for the third, at least in the present. I do like how they’ve built up the FBI director as a hard ass that seems to care and empathize with her agents. I was actually relieved when they seem to dissuade her from entering the warehouse but then she does so anyways out of concern for her agents. I think the situation devised worked well to not make it seem like the bad horror trope of irrationally walking towards danger. It was made clear that she knew it was dangerous but given what happened to the SWAT team, she couldn’t afford to wait till a biohazard team showed up. I think Goss’s story is the most relatable. I think most people, given the situation would behave the way he has. Because of that, and because of everything else we’ve seen so far, it was almost a relieve to see him die of a simple heart attack…but then he is resuscitated by a man that should already be dead. That does raise some nit-picky questions. Goss’ partner seems to be “alive” with half his hear missing so is Goss also a living deadman? If so how did the heart attack “kill” him? There are in no way plot holes or anything. It seems to be that Carnahan is in charge of this world somehow and could be affecting people on a whim. I do think that maybe what is seen has to do with who is in the warehouse, maybe? As Shaw and McGregor seem to stumble on Notre Dame just after the director entered the warehouse and she’s the one with a closer connection to it. I also share the same concern about whether or not Ennis will be able to end this in a satisfying way. For me it’s not so much in Ennis’ skill as a writer, from what I’ve read of his work he obviously has a penchant to shock his reader but I think he’s also very good at developing characters and taking them through an arc. That said, I think mysteries in general are very hit or miss. It seems it is easier for writers to build up a mystery since they can throw whatever imagery they want at you but putting all those pieces together in a way that justifies the journey is far more difficult. I’m really hoping Ennis can stick the landing. At 12 issues he definitely has more time to do it as something like Wytches had to be started and finish by this point and I think it could have been improved with a few more issues. Speaking of, the collected editions of this series were released in two books of six issues and then a complete book collecting all 12. While I understand that 6-issue trades are the norm, this story doesn’t feel like it lends itself to being broken up like that. I don’t feel any kind of resolution at this stage to warrant the story breaking here, unless you count the story switching to Paris, kind of. I also understand what you mean about the art. After Batman: Damned it feels simplistic but I think it supports the story well enough. The characters are all distinct and identifiable, even though they’re all basically g-men in suits. The imagery is certainly atmospheric with whole pages dripping in black darkness and the flashbacks feeling almost like sepia-toned recollections |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite Yeah, this is my general thought. I'd prefer there to end up being something deeper than "the bad guy magically did all this", at least thematically if not in the plot itself. Fingers crossed! |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| 7 through 9 fill in more back story, a bit more from Driscoll's point of view. 9 confused me a bit though. It seemed like Driscoll was finding that everything was staged somehow, but then at the end she was actually stuck in things too. So what was all the earlier part? Maybe they'll explain it in the last few issues. | ||
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| Finishing up the spooky season - 10 through 12 finish the story. I'm uncertain in how I feel about it. My take is that the theme is about the crappiness of people being an enduring, inevitable feature of humanity but you (or tough people) should still give things your best shot. But then what's the point of all the horror stuff? And the religion part at the end? Was it nine-ish issues of set-up to let Ennis tell us he thinks we're boned because people are crappy and/or politics is dividing us? Dunno, maybe I missed the point. | ||
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| Not a ton of supernatural horror in issues 7-9, just a lot of the man-made ones. It seems the story emerging from Carnahan is that he wanted to be the vessel for the anti-Christ and needed to die for him to be filled, which he manipulated Shaw into doing. That last part, again, feels very inspired by Seven though we’re seeing what could possibly have happened afterward. Driscoll seems tied up in unraveling the absolute mess of corruption that kept Carnahan hidden from authorities the whole time and discovering that even people she knows are entangled in it. It did seem to suggest that maybe some of what we’d seen in the warehouse had been staged. The blood Driscoll was covered in was apparently corn syrup, the suicidal officer was a mannequin, and the strange limb-creatures were puppets. It looks like crews entered the warehouse afterward and maybe there was some sort of hallucinogen but the agents are still missing. Then Driscoll is suddenly back in the warehouse and she’s pale with fear and her gun melts. |
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