Writer/Artist: Gary Spencer Millidge
Publisher: Abiogenesis Press (www.millidge.com)
There’s a feeling you get, when you’ve been working in the garden, on a hot day, for a few hours, sweat pouring off your body, and your loved one brings out a cold bottle of Stella (must’ve been in the fridge for a couple of days to chill properly throughout), and you take a long, l-o-n-g swig and it hits the spot. At that moment in time, there’s nothing better in the world, it’s glorious to be alive; said moments may only come along once or twice a year. It. Hits. The. Spot.
Strangehaven is the comics equivalent.
If you haven’t run across this book before (and let’s face it, if you have read Strangehaven before then you’ll have ordered this issue already so skip to the next review), then you should know that it’s been described as a cross between Twin Peaks and The Prisoner. Personally I feel it has a little of The Stepford Wives in it, in that the real star of the story is the village of Strangehaven itself – it’s the village that encourages the various weird personalities to stay and warp even further than the norm; it’s the village that made Alex Hunter (our nominal protagonist and, in the early issues, our identification point, a stranger in a strange, er, haven if you will) stay. If you take this book now at issue sixteen and compare it to the first few, then not only do you see tangible evidence of Millidge’s growth as a storyteller (his ever-growing confidence with the page showing itself in new techniques and artistic experiments) but you see plot strands dangled early on begin to show some sort of resolution.
For example, in this issue we have the return of a certain RAF pilot, missing for fifty-odd years, mentioned almost in passing in an early issue yet the crux of half of this issue. Yet not having that early issue doesn’t affect the impact of his return and the emotional core of the story one iota, it was almost a throwaway line that when you read the first trade again you’ll make the connection and go “GSM, you sneaky bugger”. Oh, and that’s just half of this issue, there’s so much more in it.
Another early plot thread we’ll looking for resolution for is the mysterious woman who drew Alex to the village in the first place (he “hallucinated” her in the road and crashed his car in #1), who would appear to this reviewer to be in some way representative of the spirit of the village itself – maybe she’s trapped and can manifest herself for short periods of time, one such manifestation being use to draw Alex into the village because she senses that he will provide her freedom in some way? The book is laced with moments which make you think about the direction of the story, about what that strange encounter really meant, long after you’ve closed the last page.
Strangehaven is possibly the most undisposable, indispensible modern day comic you can buy, and with the ending of Cerebus is my current #1. Order it, buy it, read it, love it … then pick up the trades and write Gary a letter.
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