It’s amazing just how far a man’s mind can go to tell a story. Scott Snyder certainly has shown his horror chops in a lot of his work. But this time, it feels like he is going to tell us (along with Scott Tuft) a full on horror story instead of telling horror on the side like in Batman or American Vampire. You certainly have a lot going for this book to scare you: Hobos, cannibal murders, and a general sense of doom are throughout this comic book. If you’re like me and you got excited with the word ‘hobos’ in that last sentence, then this is a comic for you.

This issue both Snyder and Tuft decided to get us more introduced to the children in this tale. While I’m not up on my 1910s lingo, I like the dialogue throughout the issue. It makes it feel very authentic and the writers definitely put in a lot of research for the setting. What makes this series, and this issue, work for me so far is the more disturbing moments. It’s not like Snyder or Tuft is going full frontal with the horror here, they are going with the slow burn for this series. So one moment we’ll have a chilling idea of two men ‘advancing’ on kids, the next we’ll have a few pages of building up to seeing a corpse of another kid from the previous issue. It’s a nice balance and it keeps you on your toes throughout the issue as you turn the page. I certainly couldn’t tell what was going to happen next as it kept going.

I really do love the style of the art used in this series. Futaki’s painting style sort of makes it feel like your looking at a painting from Norman Rockwell and the like. While I don’t recall Rockwell drawing a dangling corpse or a tattooed cannibal, the painted style makes it a delight for the eyes. Even if you don’t want to see what’s going to happen next…The coloring is also pretty good too with a muted, sometimes eerie feel to it. Lots of browns to indicate were on a train car, but then he’ll use slight purples or oranges to indicate dusk. Sometimes the faces can look a bit stiff or unemotional but for the most part this is a gorgeous looking issue.

This is an eight issue maxi series and were only on issue two with a very slow burn. Normally I don’t like when comics are this slow in terms of delivering the plot, but here Snyder and Tuft are crafting a brilliant but equally disturbing story. The last image of this comic is not only drawn beautifully by Futaki, like the rest of the issue, but it’s so disturbing it’s a little hard to swallow looking at it. We haven’t scratched the surface with this mini and I’m already unsure whether I want to continue….In a good way!