Daphne Byrne (Hill House Comics)

Daphne Byrne
Laura Marks, writer; Kelley Jones, artist; Michelle Madsen, colorist
DC Black Label, 2020

For this Hill House miniseries new comics writer Laura Marks (TV’s The Good Fight and The Expanse) teams up with veteran horror comics legend Kelley Jones (The Sandman, Batman: Red Rain, and the Vertigo series Crusades). The setting is late 19th century New York, with atmospheric gaslight that is perfectly suited to Jones' visual style. Title character Daphne Byrne is 14 years old, and in addition to dealing with the sudden death of  her father, she has a mother whose grief has left her open to manipulation by occultists promising her contact with her husband in the afterlife.

Daphne is already an outsider at school, but then she begins to have an outside experience within herself. An entity calling himself "Brother" manifests himself (apparently only to her), offering her the power to alter events. At first she is hesitant to trust him, but after awhile she comes to rely on him, and follow his lead. She finds a way to save her mother in the big climax, and is revealed to be far more than she knew.

A story full of dark shadows, seances, demons, ghouls and Satanic rites is custom-made for Jones to draw, and he created a visual horror tour-de-force. Marks' script is less focused, although the visuals save it. Maybe the ending is supposed to answer all of the questions, but it really just leaves things mostly unresolved.

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