By: Caitlin Kittredge (story), Inaki Miranda (art), Eve de la Cruz (colors)
The Story: Friends are forever—and their betrayals last even longer.
The Review: Since Kittredge has, if nothing else, established that Coffin Hill is a series where tragedy prevails even in moments of triumph, it was impossible not to suspect that Mel’s miraculous recovery last issue was not as it seemed. I put up the theory that Mel had come back deranged, the better to face once more the darkness in the woods which stole her sanity in the first place.
The truth is not quite so dramatic, being a case of simple possession. Using a respectable bit of cop logic, Eve cuts to the chase immediately and demands to know who has invaded her friend’s body and why. Obviously, the answers are vague and non-committal, riddled with references to “the Harvest” and so on. Whether anything of the original Mel is left in there, though, it seems pretty foregone that whatever victory Eve manages to eke out will be pyrrhic. Even if Eve returns Mel to normal, she’ll have placed a massive obstacle between herself and Nate, the only character she’s shown consistent real feelings for.
It’s pretty obvious from the various flashbacks we’ve seen that Eve was a pretty unlikable personality, even to her friends. Early issues portrayed Mel and Dani as willing, even eager participants to Eve’s magical hijinks, but Kittredge fine-tunes that picture a little bit, suggesting that Eve’s friends were more typical teenage rebels in that they kept their troublemaking secret, in the dead of night. By day, they were less enthusiastic accomplices, both of Eve’s supernatural and ordinary mischief—perhaps to their detriment. Can it really be a coincidence that Dani, the most judgmental of Eve’s flirtations with the occult and Nate, got the worst fate in the woods?
Speaking of Nate, maybe this is just the typical guy in me talking, but it’s rather disappointing to see the conflict in this series transition into a dreary, entitled love triangle. The really sad part is that Nate is the strongest link in this chain of affairs. Alone with either Eve or Mel, he seems like a deserving object of affection;* when all three are on the same page together, the relationship regresses to middle school level, where insults like “bitch” and “virgin” are the height of criticism. It’s hard to take Coffin Hill seriously when its tension feels this catty.
It’s too bad Kittredge spends so much time on all this soapy drama while truncating the most interesting parts of the issue. The juxtaposition of Eve’s police practice and her magical knowledge results in a convincing scene where she identifies an amateur occult ritual to piece together the actor’s motivations. Unfortunately, Kittredge cuts the scene short, leading Eve to a cadaver without explaining how it connects to the clues she discovered earlier. And this is the most credible sequence in the issue.
Miranda does suffer from Same Face Syndrome, in which he struggles to give each character his or her own individual face, rather than slightly altered versions of the same facial mold. With the female characters, there’s a risk every time he gives them too similar a hair style. With Mel’s hair down and back to its original color, it’s that much easier to confuse her with teenage Dani, but without a hat. Other than that, Miranda’s love of details makes the issue shine artistically even when the script is rather dull. Between his lavish settings and De La Cruz’s haunting, malevolent colors, you can start to believe you have a top-notch title in your hands.
Conclusion: Instead of giving you more reasons to invest in the series, the issue encourages you to withdraw your investment and funnel it into more worthy ventures.
Grade: C
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: * Although Eve’s mom thinks otherwise. “After what he did to his brothers and to you, he deserves what’s coming.” Hopefully, whatever he did to his brothers wasn’t too gross, otherwise that says a lot about Coffin Hill’s police hiring standards.
Grade
Conclusion