Domino has been granting the desires of those who crave their own destruction. She’s been doing so for long enough that she’s beginning to wonder whether or not she’s giving in to those desires in and within herself. Time will tell whether or not she finds her own destruction as the inevitable approaches in Lovesick #2. Writer/artist Luana Vecchio continues her descent into the darker ends of human desire in another intriguingly minimalist look at sensuality, sexuality, and ritual suicide. Vecchio could theoretically saturate the page with a bit more story, but the slow, gradual movement of events carries its own kind of horror.

Years ago, there was a young guy who found his way into the presence of Domino and her practice. He was a little dazzled by the darkness. He enjoyed the horror of it all. He longed to be lucky enough to be snuffed out by Domino, but she felt something with him and never seemed to allow him the honor of his own death at her hands. That’s about to change after a particularly gruesome hunt that he is called in to clean up. He’s ready to be taken by her. And somewhere in the midst of it all, she has another vision of her own destruction. 

It is to her credit that Vecchio doesn’t try to tackle too much in a single issue of the series. There is plenty of room for moods to filter through the page. It would be a real temptation to over-render the psyche of the characters in their dialogue. As it is, there isn’t even really an internal monologue for any of these characters. And so what’s happening on the surface level is allowed plenty of room to move around on the page and nestle itself into the dark corners of the reader’s imagination. There is much that is gruesome and appealing on the page. Vecchio allows the reader enough space to really process it without over-rendering the specific details of what’s going on.

Vecchio frames the action in a way that feels more or less judgment free. This is particularly interesting, as there are remarkably gruesome moments that are framed with the same somewhat neutral embrace that she reserves for less dramatic moments. Vecchio’s colors are limited. It is black. There is white, and there is a whole lot of red as well. Occasionally, very striking moments hit the page, but not exactly where one might expect. It keeps the reader off guard, lowers the defenses. By the end of the chapter, she has delivered that rare experience of a dream and nightmare reality that feels quite unlike almost anything else on the mainstream comics page today.

In the first issue, Domino felt like a hero. In the second issue, she begins to seem a bit more like a tragically conflicted character, who is almost certainly going to descend into her own madness. There was only a vague hint of Domino’s potential destruction before. By the end of this issue, it seems almost inevitable.

Grade: B