B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Pickens County Horror #2
Publisher: Dark Horse
Writers: Mike Mignola & Scott Allie
Artist: Jason Latour (cover by Becky Cloonan)
Colors: Dave Stewart
When your neighborhood includes vampires, huge mushrooms, and a fog that contains some kind of insane beings that can infect you with a disease just by touching you, your time might be up to relocate. Add to the fact that you already live in a redneck area, and have no clue that most of the planet is under assault by earthquakes, frog infestations, and other creatures of fantastic origin. Yep, sounds like a B.P.R.D. book to me! The night is dark and the fog is rolling in. Agent Vaughn still can’t get the answers he wants from the nutty professor guy inside the cottage. Agent Peters is in the other room, but she isn’t herself, literally. That’s not the only worry, though, as Agent Vaughn is starting to get a little bit nervous with the ever increasing fog outside. By the end of the issue, some are dead, few are alive, but rest assured, any survivors will be so mentally scarred from what they’ve seen, that they’ll be pretty much useless in the coming war!
I can’t stress enough about the ridiculously awesome vibe that the B.P.R.D. books have right now. Yes, Mignola and Allie are knocking it out of the park with these titles (as is Arcudi on the others). When you think classic horror (creepy stuff), this is right up there with anything else that’s been released in the last ten years or more. This is some seriously great stuff being put out by Dark Horse right now, and with this being the year of B.P.R.D., things can only get crazier!
Newcomer Jason Latour fits right in with this crew. His style is perfect for this book, with its spooky looking vampires and those whacked out zombies in that fog! He really does a great job at keeping it simple. Don’t laugh, that’s something that a lot of artists get wrong. They try to be too cute with their work, which hurts rather than helps. That certainly isn’t the case with Latour. As usual, I’m on the Stewart bandwagon for his spectacular use of colors. If they ever lose him, you’ll definitely see a drop in quality. The cover by Becky Cloonan is quite good, too. It really compliments the work on the inside, but doesn’t supersede it. Overall, this little two part story helped pump up an already solid title in B.P.R.D., and things are only looking up for 2012!
Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net
