What's The Furthest Place From Here? #3
The Academy learns there’s more going on than meets the eye at the Bold Folks Home in What’s The Furthest Place From Here #3?, by writer Matthew Rosenberg, artist Tyler Boss, and letterer Hassan Otsmae-Elhaou. This is yet another banger of an issue, and that’s all there is to it.
Prufrock has a nightmare about the strangers, wakes up, and explores the Academy’s new domicile. He finds a room full of monitors and is joined by Mallory. They find a tape of Sid but encounter the house’s residents, a group of seemingly elderly people. After a bit of a scuffle and the rest of the Academy showing up, it’s revealed they are just another family. The two groups have dinner and talk, and Prufrock, exploring again, attacks a Stranger he finds and brings it to the dining room. From there, the two groups talk things out and separate, with two members of the Academy staying with the Bold Folks and the Academy leaving. Each group gets visitors, and the danger for the Academy grows.
As usual, Rosenberg and Boss turn in yet another great issue. A highlight of the book is the stuff in the surveillance room. The Bold Folks Home was probably a sanitarium of some sort, so there’s a room full of monitors and VCRs. Prufrock and Mallory don’t really understand how they work, which tells the reader about the technology they’ve grown up with and what they know about the world. Prufrock hitting the VCR to get Sid out of it is hilarious, and all in all, it’s a wonderful little scene that does some stealth-world building while entertaining.
There are other little moments like that throughout the issue, like when Nana asks the members of the Academy to show her their gods, and they pull out their records, something that gives the scene where a member of the group picks a record in the first issue a lot more resonance. Readers also get more glimpses of the Strangers, which is very interesting and disturbing, and learns who took Sid. As usual, the tone of the issue is perfect. Rosenberg is able to capture an air of foreboding and dread throughout this book, and it works wonderfully.
A big reason for why it works so well is Boss’s art, of course. He’s an amazing artist. The best way to describe his work so far is that he’s able to do so much with so little. That’s not to say his art is detailed or that he skimps out on the stage dressing or backgrounds; no, Boss is great at all of things. However, he does an amazing job of using the empty space of the rooms, giving them a big, spooky feel that helps the tone. In this issue, he accomplishes it by coloring the house in grays and blacks and giving the walls and floors details from a spooky old house. His character acting is great, even though his faces are relatively simply drawn. The resulting art is minimalist and expressive, something that’s extremely impressive.
What’s The Furthest Place From Here? #3 is yet another amazing issue of this comic. Rosenberg, Tyler, and Otsame-Elhaou are crafting a thrilling story, and this is one of the best books on the market, especially when one factors in the page count, price, and just how good of a comic it is.