Winnebago Graveyard #1
Image Comics
Story by: Steve Niles
Art by: Aditya Bidikar, Alison Sampson, Jordie Bellaire, Stéphane Paitreau
Variant Cover: Mingjue Helen Chen
In a world where superhero fatigue is becoming a national epidemic, it is nice to see other genres push through in comic books. Winnebago Graveyard explores the world of horror as an American family traveling on vacation find themselves stranded in a small town with a sinister secret. The opening panels give us a glimpse of what to expect, but it is merely a taste. We are then sent back to where this whole trip started.
This is issue one of a four part series. The mission of a first issue, episode, etc., of anything, is to grab your attention and introduce you to the characters. I believe this does both. It grabs you right from the start with a human sacrifice and then jerks you back to before it all started. (At first I thought my copy was missing some pages, but after looking at it again, it really works.) While a lot of the art in this book is muddy looking, it fits the tone. There is a dirtiness to this story that has to be there.
Our main characters are obviously not your typical, happy family. These are people going through things and they probably think a vacation is going to be the solution to their problems. In true horror fashion, this could not be further from the truth. While this issue uses a lot of horror tropes, they do not wear too thin… yet. I am interested to see how the next three issues play out.