Angel Fire: The Graphic Novel

Angel Fire is a book that really took me by surprise with its outstanding art, haunting atmosphere, and terrifying plot. A gem of a story produced by Chris Blythe and artist Steve Parkhouse that is one of the few horror graphic novels I've ever read that actually gave you some tingles down your spine...not often easy to do in a graphic novel that doesn't have a soundtrack appropriately programmed to make you jump at certain points. The story starts out as if it might be a drama as three lawyers greedily celebrate the apparent ruination of a rival firm...a ruination that led to a suicide by the firm's founder. Two men, John and Zee are given a bonus by their boss...an expensive designer drug called Angel Fire as they party the night away with prostitutes. John Dury returns home only to find that he has forgotten his second wedding anniversary. He finds the dining room table still set for a candlelight dinner and the card from his wife torn in half...and his wife gone. Despondent he falls into addiction to drugs and alcohol before getting a message from his wife that she wants to reconcile. He travels to Scotland, his wife's home, to meet with her, only to find that she too has committed suicide. John is now in the depths of despair and nearly overdoses. What's more this is something...just off into the shadows, watching and following him. He inherits his wife's ancestral home in Scotland, located on a tiny island in a lake that flooded over the original town that had been there centuries earlier. The crucifix from the old gothic church can still be seen rising out of the lake's depths. But once there John is plagued by horrific visions of a nun, bleeding from the wrists that he sees in the water and a voice that warns "beware the shadows". John learns of a novice nun who was raped by a priest and sealed up within a wall in the old church. Now John hears strange voices and movements within the house and picks up blood curdling screams on his tape recorder...meanwhile the menacing shadow with glowing red eyes is getting closer and closer. Angel Fire is one of the most haunting, moody stories I've ever read, graphic novel or regular novel. Blythe slowly but deftly builds the tension throughout the story and reveals the dark history of the area in gradual bits to the reader, and the nun's story is told partly in flashbacks that have some genuinely creepy imagery. It's a story that would make a great film. Truly a unique work and highly recommended for anyone looking for a good fright. From Nantier Beall Publishing. Reviewed by Tim Janson