By: Brandon Montclair (story), Amy Reeder (art)
The Story: This Halloween, it’s all about Eve.
The Review: I have a confession to make: I hate Halloween. In fact, I’d say I hated it even when I was a kid. I hated traipsing around the town at night, mooching off third-class candy off some of my least favorite neighbors, like Mrs. Wheezer (probably not her real name), who once screamed at me for about ten hours when my soccer ball went astray and landed in her zinnias, which were mostly dead anyway. I also hate giving candy as much as I hate having to ask for it.
Most of all, I hated getting into costume. First of all, I stink at arts and crafts of any sort; I pretty much failed Folding, Cutting, and Gluing in elementary school. Second, I’m of a mind that if I’m gonna wear a costume, I’d like to look good in it, and short and muscle-less does nothing for any outfit. Third, I never really saw the point of wearing a costume unless you’re in a play or maybe if you have a good joke behind it—like wearing a suit and introducing yourself as an IRS agent auditing for candy, or dressing up like a Greenpeace communist, or going as Land Shark.
So yes, I empathize with our protagonist in this story. The main difference between Eve and me is I don’t lord my prejudices over anyone who happens to like or love the holiday. It’s pretty much a harmless excuse for people to get together and have some fun. Eve’s issues with Halloween also revolve around a general dislike for costumes, but comes from a more personal place than mine. Maybe that’s why she comes off strident and like such a “witch.”
What really makes this issue work is the unusual subject matter and setting; it definitely doesn’t read or look (more on that later) like anything you’ve read in comics before. Montclair takes us into the odd world of a Halloween warehouse, one of those places you can’t help wondering how they survive when it’s not October. Besides offering us a glimpse of how these things operate, he gets you to relate by capturing the spirit of retail work in all its exhausting grimness. Eve, of course, sums it up best: “I hate Halloween. I hate people. I hate everything.”
In spite of her dour attitude, you tend to like Eve, even if you don’t share her sentiments. It’s hard to explain—just like co-worker Raymond’s crush on her is hard to explain—and just like any romantic interest in a person so obviously wrong for you is hard to explain—but she projects charm underneath all that prickliness, and perhaps the attraction comes from wanting to see that inner beauty come out.
I’m just not sure that when Eve’s does come out that she’s earned it. Her Christmas Carol-meets-Wizard of Oz journey into Halloween Land is a lot of fun, but it just doesn’t seem clear that the experience directly connects to whatever lesson she learns at the end. After all, you only have a few pages between the moment where she reconciles herself to the holiday and the moment where she was still poo-pooing it pretty strongly (“Halloween…every day…doesn’t it drive you all nuts?”), and there’s no real impetus for change (especially such drastic change—“Have a happy Halloween!”) during the interim.
If this Halloween world comes to life, or if our hero has the appeal she does, it all has to do (or mostly to do) with Reeder’s magnificent, gloriously colorful and imaginative art. She can’t get a project more suitable for her talents than this one, as it allows her gift for costumery to go on full display. Eve’s Dorothy (as in “of Oz”) ball gown complete with the Toto masquerade mask is as inspired as the deer-hoofed sandals Reeder gave the titular character in Madame Xanadu. Reeder’s manga influences also emphasize the Spirited Away quality of Halloween Land and Eve’s dysfunctional place in it.
Conclusion: A beautifully rendered modern fairy tale, one that has a joyful, strangely innocent tone despite the cynicism of its characters, but without much of a message to absorb.
Grade: A-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – Montclair nails the general co-worker dynamic: a distant sort of caring, mostly predicated on stingers at the other’s expense. “Saying sorry won’t get you laid,” Ingrid tells Raymond in that perfect balance between mockery and giving sincere advice.