Kill Your Darlings #1 // Review
It's night. A girl is burned for being a witch. A couple of pages later, it's day. Another girl stands amidst adorable animal warriors in a suit of armor, drawing the massive mystical sword named Francine. In 1995, there's a girl holding the sword aloft amidst an army of plushies. It's going to be a long journey for the girl in question in Kill Your Darlings #1. The writing team of Ethan S. Parker and Griffin Sheridan opens up a whole new fantasy series with artists Bob Quinn and John J. Hill.
Soldiers have fallen. It is a desperate hour. Outside of Rose's room, her mother is dealing with bills. It's not looking good, but Rose isn't supposed to worry about that. She's supposed to be worrying about things in her own personal fantasy world. It's OK. She's really a lot more focused on saving her friends from a creepy army if she could really use some reinforcements, though. Her mom isn't really ready to focus. She has to make some phone calls. Everything closes at five. And she really needs to make sure that she's got everything under control. Rose is going to have to fight this one alone.
Parker and Sheridan really have something here. There's fantasy. There's reality. There's cuteness. There's serious drama and fantastical horror. One might have expected the cuteness to continue throughout the entire issue. And to a certain extent, it does. But it's also a coming-of-age drama that has quite a bit going on on both sides of the equation. Parker and Sheridan have a lot of different elements in play. Things could go in quite a few different directions or quite a few different reasons. The first issue has enough variation in tone and style over the course of several scenes to make it feel like things could develop into something phenomenal.
Quinn and Hill do a profoundly interesting job of setting the tone and mood. There are three distinct settings that come into play in the first issue. And each one of them has a distinctly different feel about them. However, there is a very impressive connection between all three different worlds that keeps the issue cohesive, even as it brings the reader through some desperate different emotions, moods, and motions. Actually, it's really impressive the way everything comes together wonderfully. Rose comes across as a very brave little girl who is both very mature and very childish at the same time. This can be very difficult for any artist to bring across on the comics page. Quinn and Hill are doing an excellent job with Rose.
The opening issue has enough mystery to keep everything rolling into issue, too. However, 1 girl's fantasy world being affected by reality and unforeseen consequences in a coming-of-age story feels way too familiar. Or things could really become very tired and clichéd if Parker and Sheridan aren't careful. Rose seems like a really cool little person. And that's a good enough start for what could be a really, really powerful series.
