Basketful of Heads #1
Hill House Comics/DC Comics
Words by: Joe Hill
Art by: Leomacs
Colors by: Dave Stewart
Letters by: Deron Bennett
At the NYCC Diamond retailer summit, DC Comics kept telling retailers to go all in on Hill House comics; with Joe Hill is at the helm. With Basketful of Heads, we can see why they made that choice. After reading the issue, it is disappointing that this is just a miniseries and not an ongoing one comic arc.
Basketful hits the mark perfectly by establishing a solid foundation for the story to explore. Considering that it is a short miniseries, it utilizes the issue wonderfully to establish the characters. Very few books are able to accomplish this and it shows the hard work and dedication that Hill puts into developing the story.
One of the fears I had was that it would be too similar to Locke and Key or Wraith. As both stories use different styles of suspense but had somewhat similar theme. Where a device or item, takes the story to a different world for the plot development. Thankfully, Hill uses a real-world location to set the story and keep it grounded.
Leomac’s art matches perfectly to the setting and themes of the book. Using those real world settings, it allows his art to help drive the stories themes. For horror comics, art is the most important aspect as it sets the tone and feelings for the reader. He hits on both those marks and shows he can handle any setting the story goes into.
Hill and Leomacs create a great partnership in this debut. It was important for Basketful of Heads to come out swinging as a lot is riding on the partnership DC has with Hill. As it was mentioned at the Diamond retailer event, DC Comics is going all in with Hill House and it looks like a great decision