Only Skin #2

Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2007
By: Steve Saville

Creator(s): Sean Ford
Publishers: Self Published.
Address: White River Jct, Vermont, USA
Price: US $5.00 Available from secretacres or iknowjoekimpel

Back at Sam’s Service Station darkness has descended and with it another strange disappearance, another set of fingers left behind and more questions are posed than answers found.

This second edition is dominated by the inky, black darkness of night; symbolic of the lack of knowledge the characters have of the strange goings on that surround them.
The overriding tone on this second instalment is one of darkness, an oppressive blanket of darkness hiding the truth and creeping over this small blighted town.

One of the characters describes it as “a gathering storm’ and it certainly does have the feeling of something brewing up and about to burst.

It is hardly surprising then that the locals are starting to get just a little tense and restless. The community meeting provides more questions than answers and Ford just keeps turning the tension dial up.

Into this world of weirdness Cassie and Paul make their initial fumbling attempts at forming a relationship but it all comes to nothing, it is as if there is too much to think about here to allow for normal relationships to flourish.

As in the initial edition, the words are carefully chosen but it is the spaces between them that drip with meaning. The art is once again aimed at creating a feeling of expansiveness, it feels like this little community is in the middle of a big empty world, they are alone and powerless.

There is little to get hopeful about here apart from the fact that as this chapter ends young Clay meets a local boy who has also seen the strange, 'cartoonish' ghost that has been stalking Clay since his arrival. Overall Paul, Cassie and the others are no nearer finding any answers and to make it all worse the Albert, Paul’s friend and associate, has wondered off to see if he can solve the mystery…by himself…in the dark.

Thoroughly enjoyable, delightfully tense and I can hardly wait for #3.

In a Word: Dark.

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