Pick of the Week

August 3, 2011 – Severed #1

What did the
iFanboy
community think?

531
Pulls
Avg Rating: 4.5
iFanboy Community Pick of the Week Percentage: 1.7%
 
Users who pulled this comic:
Story by Scott Snyder & Scott Tuft
Art by Attila Futaki

Size: pages
Price: 2.99

Scott Snyder is not to be trusted.

Sure, on the outside he seems all nice and unassuming and like someone who would stop and help you if your car broke down. But if I was stranded by the side of the road with smoke pouring out of my engine with a dead cell phone and no water, if I saw Scott Snyder slowing down to help, I’d just wave him on by.

Because the guy writes some dark comics. Dark and fantastic comics.

When I first heard that Scott Snyder’s next comic book was called Severed, and that it would be co-written with his childhood best friend and published by Image Comics, I was really excited; so much so that I didn’t look into the details of the book at all. I wanted to go in as fresh as possible. Of course, when you cover comic books for a living you can only take that kind of media blackout so far. Just a few weeks ago I interviewed Snyder at San Diego Comic-Con and he talked a good deal about Severed and instead of being disappointed that I now knew what the book was about, everything he said made me really excited to read it.

Through his work on American Vampire and Batman: Gates of Gotham, Scott Snyder has shown that he has an affinity for, or at least an interest in, the past. With that in mind, there are three things you need to know about Severed #1. It takes place in 1916. It features a serial killer with sharpened teeth. And it features a boy embarking on a hobo adventure across America.

With two main storylines (destined, of course, to come together) there are two main characters. The “hero” of the story is, presumably, Jack Garron, a young boy who chooses to run away from home to live life on the rails as a hobo (apparently this is something you could do in 1916) rather than attend a fancy music school, which he was admitted to thanks to his prowess with the violin. The “villain” of the story is, presumably, The Nightmare, a serial killer who also goes by the name of Mr. Porter and who likes to hire young boys out of orphanages to work has his apprentices (apparently this is something you could do in 1916) but instead of putting said boys to work he, presumably, eats them with his sharpened teeth.

Stories that feature serial killers tend to be crime stories but Severed is, right now, squarely in the horror camp. I’ve never really been a horror guy. I don’t traditionally go for the over the top slasher stories. But when horror stories are more tense and drawn out, and more about the psychology and the emotion than the monster and the gore, that’s when I start to get interested.

Severed #1 is all about mood and atmosphere. It’s more creepy than scary. When you first meet Mr. Porter you know that something’s not right about him. And when he tells his new apprentice Frederick that he’s a good salesman because he has a set of razor sharp teeth hidden behind his pearly whites, something tells you that he’s not kidding. And so we sit and tensely wait for the inevitable reveal, our stomach in knots because Frederick is surely a goner. Snyder elicited similar emotions in the most recent issue of Detective Comics, an issue that was one of the most tense page turners of the year. He clearly knows what he’s doing when it comes to setting a mood and then drawing it out at a specific pace. Here, most of the story is probably best described as languidly creepy and then all of a sudden at the end it’s terrifying. That’s good writing, and Snyder and his co-writer Scott Tuft should be commended.

But that’s not all. One of the best things about Severed #1 is the art by Attila Futaki. A newcomer to American comics, Futaki’s style is all European and it’s perfect for a book like this that is all about character and mood. Life is tough out there in 1916, especially for hobos and serial killer drifters, and you can see that tough life on the faces of the characters. Their faces are lined, they’re weathered, and they tell a story. He also does fantastic work with long establishing shots that make the setting and the environment of the story really come to life. Sometimes doing a period piece is like setting a story on an alien world–the surroundings that the characters find themselves in are so alien and yet familiar to where we are now that it makes the story inherently more interesting.

It’s great to see that a guy like Scott Snyder, who has found a lot of success working at DC Comics, not only has these kinds of stories in him, but also a desire to see them out there enriching the comic book marketplace. If you’re a fan of Snyder’s work on Detective Comics then do yourself a favor and check out Severed #1. It’s creepy in a way that even the greatest story featuring The Joker could never be, because the next knock on your door could be Mr. Porter’s.

Conor Kilpatrick
That dude needs a dentist.
conor@ifanboy.com

Comments

  1. Damn. My comic shop didn’t get this today 🙁 I am going to try another one this evening

  2. Oooh boy, I a headed to the comic store much later than normal today, so I hope they still have a copy.

  3. Literally just finished this, and thought it was excellent.  Snyder is a real master at not only setting, but also setting the pace, everything builds at a perfect speed.  The mood and atmosphere reminded me of those great Guy Davis Sandman Mystery Theatre issues combined with really good Stephen King.  There’s some really exceptional “new” talent in comics at the moment and Snyder’s right there at the forefront.

  4. Conor, you’ve got me really jazzed about this book. It’s pulled and waiting for me. Great to see Snyder get some more love from my fellow Fanboys.

  5. Do we know how many issues this is going to be

  6. Dammit!  My shop actually had a copy of this.  I looked closely at it, reminded myself that I was trying to shrink my pull-list, and then put it back.  I should’ve known.

  7. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    @Sammy  7

  8. @PaulMontgomery  How the hell did I miss your preview for this?  I demand answers (from myself).

  9. Conor, interesting pick, but the real story is how much did Josh offer to trade this week so that he could pick Hellboy? I mean if you weren’t getting cash and some interesting prospects (ie. no two buck chucks) or some draft picks (pretty girls) it wouldn’t be worth it. 🙂

  10. Wait.  I also missed it in the Light Week feature.  I think I might suck at being a comic book fan.  I’m going back to the shop.

  11. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    @mongo  No issue of Hellboy came out this week so…

  12. Thanks Paul

  13. Oh thanks Paul, I saw the blurb about Hellboy and thought it was this week. Please find a way for Josh to not get a hold of sharp objects.

  14. I really enjoyed this comic. Snyder (and Tuft don’t forget him too) has once again done another creepy comic to read. Plus the art by Futaki was gorgeous. His art reminded me a lot of Jon S. Muth.

    But it wasn’t my Pick unfortunately. That went to Thunderbolts #161 where Parker juggled a shit load of storybeats and didn’t lose his cool. That and Declan Shalvey is the man when it comes to art now. 

  15. I passed on this.  It didn’t really seem like it was in my wheel house, and adding another new series to my gluttonous pull list just seems crazy at this point.  I’ll keep my ears peeled for how it turns out and check out the trade (hopefully, there will be one).

  16. Sold out at my retailer within the first 4 hours. Hope they do a reprint (and actually order a decent amount).

  17. That was a fast pick, light week or what?

  18. I liked this issue a lot and I think it’s going to be a great story, but I feel like I’m not seeing what everyone else is.

  19. @harwellpkg  This is within a pretty standard timeframe for Conor.  Josh is usually a bit later and Ron is the one that is late due to being on the West Coast.

  20. That’s a great cover.

  21. Shiiiiit, this was good.  Just had an afternoon of Snyder overload, catching up on his Detective run and capping it off with this.  That Snyder can spin himself a creepy, superbly placed yarn.

  22. I liked this book, but I can’t say that I thought it was anything more than rehashed plot lines. It read like Natty Gann meets Tobey Maguire’s character in Sin City with really good art. Keep in mind that I am in no way making fun of Ron’s sideburns in my questioning of this pick.

  23. This was so close to being my pick of the week.  But I went with another intense, creepy book: Rachel Rising.  It could have been a tie.  Anyway, I loved the hell out of Severed.  The art was fantastic.  Especially the opening scene with the grandparents. When I was a kid, I was more scared of serial killers than anything. So this book is perfectly disturbing for me.  Scott Snyder is a hell of a storyteller.  

  24. So far it’s hard to find a book from this week that’s better than Red Skull #2. Brilliant!

  25. I finished this last night at work, and HAD to give it a second read. Seriously its a BEAUTIFUL comic, the art, the story, Snyder is killing my wallet these days.

  26. @PDubble  Well, that’s good cause it’s Conor’s pick this week.

  27. Anyone know why Moon Knight wasn’t mentioned on this weeks podcast??

  28. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    @HeroesForHire08  There are currently no Moon Knight books on the market. Are you sure you didn’t simply…imagine it?

    Rod Serling out. 

  29. You guys let me down!  I went back and bought this book because it was the pick, without listening or reading about it, (which is probably my first mistake), and I was so disappointed!  

    I can see that things are building up, but this intro was SO DULL.  An old guy with sharp teeth who eats orphans?  I must be desentizied, because just typing that made me yawn.

    I just didn’t get it.  Yes, the art is great in the early periods, (not great in the 50’s/60’s era), but there has to be more to a story than that to catch me.  With Detective and American Vampire, I was sure Snyder would hook me somehow in the first 20 pages, but I was dead wrong.

    I’ll be flipping through this in the future, but pick of the week?  Not in my eyes. 

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