Her Infernal Descent – Preview Review
Cover A by Kyle Charles
Her Infernal Decent (on Shelves April 18th) may sound like the hottest black metal band you’ve never heard of, but it is in-fact a love a letter to classic horror stories, like Dane’s Inferno, and a personal suggestion for fans of classic literature. Comic veteran Zac Thompson and Lonnie Nadler (writing team behind The Dregs and Come Into Me) have written a truly cerebral tale matched up with Kyle Charles (Artist of Roche Limit, soon to be a SyFy channel series *fingers crossed*) art that perfectly captures the tone and uniquely shows the nonverbal interaction of the two main characters.
Her Infernal Descent follows a middle-aged woman’s descent into the nine circles
of hell, to retrieve her lost family while being lead by the ghost of William Blake. Don’t let the quipping and quotable dialogue from these two distract you from Easter egg appearances of other celebrity writers and icons of history. If you are debating a physical or digital copy of this book, I highly encourage getting the physical copy as I feel this is a book where some things could be lost in translation for a digital version.
What’s the Voltage? Art / Writing / Readability / Potential
The cover and interior art are held together very well and Kyle’s vision of hell and the denizens therein compliment the story well, 4.5/5. The story is something as old as time, but that’s not what you’ll take away from this book. It’s all about the dialogue and when I was done I found myself rhyming along with Blake and looking to use excerpts in conversation, just to see my friends reactions, story 4.5/5. Readability can be a little challenging and not for casual comic readers. There are a few pages and panels that took some risks, much like you’ll see in a lot of Sam Keith books. I think this will be much less of a factor in physical copies, but I’ll still have to give this a 4.5/5 for it. Her Infernal Descent is slated for a 5 issue run and it opens it’s self up well to build to more than what is expected from this set-up. In fact, I would not be surprised to see a spin-off or series of one-shots featuring other, new characters, from all walks of life making a similar journey, Potential 5/5. Overall a 4.6/5 and a high voltage book!
I wish I could hand it to my high school English teacher that first introduced me to classics like Dickenson and Shakespeare. This book is a must for lovers of classic literature.
