When Evil Torments a Small Town: Gideon Falls
Full of complexities and wonders, it is no surprise that they are popular. A perfect cocktail of art and literature, there is one to suit everyone’s taste. Sabukaru and Gata explore the unsettling world of Gideon Falls, an alluring and thrilling comic series.
Gideon Falls, besides being the title, is the region where Norton Sinclair and Father Fred reside. One lives in the bustling, trash-ridden city where he spends his day collecting garbage, and the latter, in an eerie farming town on the outskirts. Both Norton and the priest carry heavy emotional baggage: Norton regularly visits the psychiatrist Dr. Xu to treat his depression and amnesia, while Father Fred fights his alcoholism and burdening past. However, it seems like something looms over the two men.
A strange and hair-rising barn called the Black Barn mysteriously appears in Gideon Falls. It isn’t without consequences, as it seems to be linked to certain deaths and anomalies. As time goes by, Norton senses that he is intricately connected to the ominousness of the Black Barn, and soon the people around him weave into the curse of this alarming phenomenon.
Written by Jeff Lemire and illustrated by Andrea Sorrentino, this duo delivers a horror story that deviates from the traditional kind: instead of focusing on the horrifying parts, Gideon Falls is like a thrilling puzzle, building up to the end like a symphony. Contiguous characters help build the story revolving around the Black Barn while Sorrentino’s illustration carries their wit and flaws descriptively.
This blood-curdling story is, without doubt, fuel for nightmares but vulnerability and realism, both in plot and in art, deliver a harmonious gut punch sans diluting the thrill. Readers were hooked very early on, thanks to the slow-burn horror that Gideon Falls is.
About the Author:
Mizuki Khoury
Born in Montreal, based in Tokyo. Sabukaru’s senior writer and works as an artist under Exit Number Five.
