Hey Everyone!
Are you excited? I’m excited. Breath of Shadows #4 is out in comic stores today, and its one of my favorite issues of the book, because Jimmy’s story has hit the point of no return - his addictions, his past, and the centipede visions that have been torturing him all get turned up to 11, as he descends into a place where the lines between madness and reality are totally blurred, and his darkest demons are free to come out and play.
This issue, and to be honest, issue 5 too, presented a bit of a challenge for Alex and I - we’d been seeding the book with gross, horrific centipede imagery from the first issue - how could we push things, and make them more horrific, more disturbing, and not have it feeling like we were just doing it for the sake of creeping people out?
The answer falls, as it usually does, with the characters. Who is Jimmy Meadows? What makes him tick? Why is he, someone who should be on top of the world, tormented by so many demons that he can’t seem to break free from?
A huge part of this issue is a deep dive into the murky waters of Jimmy’s mind, and self image, and believe me, it’s not a pretty place.
I don’t think Jimmy is an especially likable character. I don’t think there really are many likable characters in this book, or in SEA OF SORROWS and ROAD OF BONES before them. And I think some readers might have a little disconnect there, wanting to find something to like in these people I keep writing about. I think it’s a natural thing to look for in a story, especially in a medium like comic books, which is rife with larger than life heroes and moral paragons. But that’s not really what we’re doing down here, in the dark.
What I do, with these horror stories, is write about broken people. Profoundly broken in some instances. And in each one, they meet something beyond their comprehension that threatens to break them even harder. And because we’re telling horror stories, more often than not they wind up dead, or shattered beyond recognition.
But why broken people? Why not write these with likable heroes that everyone can get behind and cheer for, even if they fail in the end? Personally, I always go back to a line from Leonard Cohen’s Anthem -
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
It’s beautiful. And inspiring. And to me, it sums up the human condition so very well. Everything is broken, but it’s through those cracks that a sliver of hope can shine.
And yet, our broken characters spend all their time trying to fill those cracks - with the comforting fairy tales of youth, or risky dives fueled by a lust for gold, or, in Jimmy’s case, all the drugs, wild behavior, and other trappings of a rock star life.
What are they doing, filling those cracks? Just trying to hold themselves together in a hostile world that’s trying to break them. But what else are they doing? Not letting the light shine in.
And that, my friends, is the bloody, dark, creepy, crawly heart of horror to me. It’s that process by which, subjected to unimaginable stress, the imperfect vessel which contains everything that makes us human cracks, and warps, and takes on a shape that is anything but.
So no, I don’t really expect you to like Jimmy. But I do hope that you come to care about him. I think, at the end of the day, if we can bring ourselves to care about people we might not necessarily like, even just a little bit, we’d be living in a much better world. And if any of these characters could, at the point of ultimate stress, remember what makes them, and everyone around them human, they might have found a very different outcome.
But like I said, that’s not what we’re doing, down here in the dark.
Ok, enough musing for this week… see you next time, and next issue, where we wrap Breath of Shadows up. Hope you’ve been enjoying it
We’ve got three amazing covers as usual, from Alex, Björn, and the mighty Joe Mulvey! Pick them up today at your favorite comic shop.
Thanks for reading along.
- Rich
I am excited to pick up books tomorrow to get caught up with the last 2 issues!
Some great insight into your characters, Rich! Almost as much fun as reading the books themselves!