This comic asks the question, “What if you found out your father was a serial killer?” This book is as chilling as it is good as it dives deep in the psyche of a serial killer and takes you along for the ride. If you have a weak stomach you may want to stick with “Dexter” since this book will probably make you sick.
Long Version
Brain looks like a normal person. He acts for the most part like a normal person. He has a wife and a new born son and a father with Alzheimer’s. Brian also has a medical condition that causes him to lose control of himself and see hallucinations and hear voices where there are none. He also must take a pill in order to avoid the hallucinations.
Brian makes peace with his father and visits him in the hospital as he approaches the end of his life. Just as he’s about to pass Brian’s father grabs ahold of him and shouts out an address and begs Brain to go there. He claims that there are bodies and needs someone to know. It seems that the old man has snapped out Alzheimer’s to confess to murder.
Perhaps it’s the fact that he was never close to his father and his dying wish might give him some closure that sends Brian to the abandoned house his father gave him the address for. Perhaps it’s some side effect of grief or medication. Whatever the reason, it changes Brian’s life forever. Once at the house he has an attack just as he’s supposed to take his medication. Brian pushes on until he’s under the house in the crawl space at his father’s request. Once inside he finds his father’s kill room and trunk of his father’s trophies… dolls made out of the flesh and bone of all the little girls he’s killed.
The narrative style jumps around a lot until it reaches the final act of the story. Writer Joshua Hale Fialkov (Tumor) does this in attempt to give the reader a larger knowledge base of the character in a shorter amount of time. He’s also gives a dangerous clue to the outcome of the story one the first page, but does a great job of making the reader forget they’ve read it by never going back to it again.
Fans of Fialkov’s “Tumor” will find a very, very similar writing style in “Echoes.” Which is good and bad as in one regard it makes his writing easily recognizable, but on the other hand it could pigeon hole him into one genre of comics. Regardless of the outcome Fialkov does the crime-drama genre very well and makes “Echoes” and fun and quick read. Never does he bog the reader down with back story or dialog. Once the story gets it’s hooks into you, you’ll breeze through the story only to hit the end and want more of this chilling story.
The art is a very strong and supportive element of the story. The creators made the right decision by keeping the art in black and white. It makes the book creepier and distraction free from what colors would have brought to the story. Rahsoan Ekedal does a great job of capturing human emotions and showing just how mentally messed up Brain really is. Fialkov’s story may give the character the words in which we are to believe him slightly crazy, but Ekedal gives him the face and looks to believe it.
This book is damn good and very surprising coming from Top Cow as it’s completely different from anything else they have in their line. I would say if they’re going to take more chances on books that don’t fall into the Sci-fi Superhero genre then they should look for more creative teams like Ekedal and Fialkov. As it stand this book is either the best thing the company is putting out, or damn close to being the best.
Overall Score - 9.5/10
Don’t knock the Dexter reference it’s the only thing I have to compare it to. Want to spoil what happens in the fourth season before I watch it? Follow me on Twitter and ruin it for me.
