Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees #1

First (issue) Impression

W:Patrick Horvath

A: Patrick Horvath

L: Hassan Otsmane-Olhaou

Don’t. Murder. The locals. This is small-town serial killer, upstanding citizen, and adorable brown bear Samantha Strong’s cardinal rule. After all, there’s a sea of perfectly ripe potential victims in the big city just beyond the forest, and when you’ve worked as hard as Sam to build a cozy life and a thriving business in a community surrounded by friendly fellow animal folk, warm décor, and the aroma of cedar trees and freshly baked apple pie…the last thing you want is to disturb the peace. So you can imagine her indignation when one of Woodbrook’s own meets a grisly, mysterious demise-and you wouldn’t blame her for doing anything it takes to hunt down her rival before the town self-destructs and Sheriff Patterson starts (literally) barking up the wrong tree. 

Thoughts…

When I looked at the cover of this comic I thought this is something a little bit twisted. I started reading the issue and thought how quaint this world is. This is the town where everyone wants to live in nice and peaceful, friendly neighbours, everyone just getting along and eating apple pie. Then the trip out to the city happened and turned it all on its head. I sort of knew it was coming from the solicitation but the change from cute to gruesome was so quick it took me by surprise. This is Care Bears meets American Psycho in small town America.

The introduction to the characters is done in such a way, that coupled with the art, will have you thinking you are reading a completely different book to what has been described. But that's the beauty of this book. The hiding in plain sight, the innocent persona all lends itself to making the more gory moments of the issue that much more terrifying.  I would recommend once you have read the issue to go back again and look at a few of the moments throughout that mirror later parts of the story. This is written really well, it has such a calming tone to it and all the while you are surrounded by a warmth even in the killing, it's not until the last few pages that the feeling is shattered. 

The art work contributes a lot to that sense of peace and tranquillity. All the characters are cute and cuddly, smiley and bright eyed and bushy tailed. It's like if there was a comic of Sylvanian Families being released. You would not think  that anything sinister or evil could ever happen in this world. The colours are all very pastel and make it all seem very unassuming, none of the panels really stick out, until you look closer. That is except the panels where there is the murder, that will stick in your brain for sure.

Something that did seem odd, all the characters are animals, our main character Samantha is a cuddly bear but throughout the issue there are animals in their more real world state including an actual bear. Is there something more to the setting and the character design going on?

As I go over the issue to write this review I find that I am finding more and more about the issue that I find intriguing and realise there is more going on here than my initial read led me to believe. While I was going to give this a 7 originally I think that would be a disservice to it, and I am actually going to give this a 9 out of 10. There is much more to this than meets the eye and it has been quite a while since a comic has made me go back over it and think deeper about what is really going on. I recommend giving this comic more than one look over as there is something about this story that has captivated my mind.