Nighthouse
by Andy Brown
A one-off short story, Nighthouse relates a supernatural chain of events in a naturalistic style. An isolated lighthouse with a creepy history compels a young woman posing as a journalist to take a closer look, only to fall victim to the Lighthouse’s dark legacy.
The story itself isn’t that great or original but what makes Nighthouse so readable is the believable characters and attention to detail. The lighthouse provides a writers den to Tudor Jones, an oddball playwright. The dialogue between him and the prying Jasmine is deftly handled, both script and artwork are rhythmic, and creator Andy Brown works hard to keep the interplay between his two characters visually stimulating. He succeeds. When Jasmine seductively twiddles her hair, Tudor burns his hand cooking and sucks his fingers in pain, an ominous echo of her gesture. Touches like this are particularly good.
The artwork, although flawed, is very charming nonetheless pitched somewhere between a more serious Dame Darcy and a less accurate Chester Brown. There are some ambitious scenes at work and everything is rendered with lots of tonal quality. Nighthouse is interesting to look at, though at times an excess of detail does muddy the action and slows the eye down when it should be surging forward.
An exciting debut overall from a promising comic creator.
Priced 50p (plus 1st Class stamp)
20 pages,
B+W, A5
from Andy Brown
21 Cae Odin,
Brackla, Bridgend
Mid Glamorgan
CF31 2HH