There’s a lot that’s been going on. Vince and Gray have started dating. Ivory confessed his love for Molly. The hitman finally has a chance to live some kind of a normal life. Everything seems to cozy as it all settles-in for the final month of the year. So...why not head out of town? This is exactly what happens in Nights #9. Writer  Wyatt Kennedy and artist Luigi Formisano  continue an appealing romantic ensemble drama. Color comes to the page courtesy of Francesco Segala. Kennedy and company once again manage a distinctly pleasant quirk of a contemporary ensemble drama. 

They’re going to New York for a bit of the holidays. It’s so...touristy around Manhattan that time of year, but they’re always open to other options. And there’s so much that can be done in and around the margins of one of the largest cities on Earth, so they’ll be able to have some fun engaging with thins that most people aren’t even aware of. A group of people from the supernatural capital of the world shouldn’t have that much trouble finding the right things to do in New York. With any luck, they’ll be back in Florida without incident.  

Kennedy clearly has a deep respect for his artist’s ability to move around the moods that he’s working with. The dialogue feels so fluid and organic throughout. The ensemble-based horror fantasy genre has a tendency to be very, very heavy on exposition and abstracts. Kennedy shrugs all of that off in favor of allowing the a rt team to really develop things in the way that it needs to develop them. There’s a grand sense of fusion between the more unspoken end of Kennedy’s story rand the work that Formisano and Segalal are managing non the page. 

Formisano and Segala have an impressive range for mood and nuance that includes a lot of unspoken moments between the characters and themselves in the midst of New York during the holidays. Segala’s colors manage some very ephemeral atmospheres wrapped-up in the chill of a December in New York. There are somepositively gorgeous low-angle shots as characters look up at the city at night. Some truly remarkable moments that are intended to gret the readers’ eyes in the evening. It’s a nice f feeling overall that feels a lot like those odd moments around the edge of a busy holiday season. 

So they tell the reader it’s best read after dark. They’ve even got a playlist for the things at issue’s end. But then it’s set during the holidays and it comes out at the end of December, so...y’know...there’s time. Issue Nine’s original soundtrack looks fun including Christmas songs by The Pogues, the Kinks, Run D.M.C. and more. Once again Kennedy and Formisano manage a fun and quirky horror fantasy dramatic comedy. It’s weirdly cool in its own stylishly casual way. Nearly all of the characters manage to be quite appealing at some point in the issue.

Grade: B+