This week I did say that ‘I want this comic to desperately work in a monthly format’. I have no doubt that this series could read better in trade, especially at the pace so far. But I want this series to work just by waiting for issues. It didn’t work for me with Walking Dead, which has similar characteristics, and I didn’t want to wait for trade on this series. Last month it was my pick of the week, this week?

I have to say that it is a very slow burn, but Jeff Lemire’s pacing has won me over. He focuses more on the emotional moments of a comic book and not nessecarily on the big action. With Mr. Jepperd of course your gonna get some bloody moments, but Lemire is not the type of guy to focus on the violence. The scene with Gus dreaming of his dad is just one of the most depressing thing’s I’ve read in a comic. It was gripping to read and I was so engrossed in it, but damn it made me so sad. Then you have the ending, which I won’t spoil here, and that was just sad as well. Now I think it is a bit obvious where this story was going; I kinda felt it since the end of issue two. Still though, Gus being so emotional towards the end of this is like seeing a real child cry in front of you. It’s so sad and Lemire, for some reason, has the emotions down to make us feel upset too.

Then you just have some amazing artwork in this. I remember making the comment, also, much earlier last year about how I would like this in black & white only. Now I don’t think I want that to happen because I think Jose Villarrubia has got it down on how each page is suppose to look. It could be because Lemire is just a different class of an artist to him, and that’s why the early issues didn’t look so particularly clean. But now the book looks how it should look with the coloring and aspects of this title looks absolutely amazing the way they are colored. The whole dream sequence with Gus’s dad decaying panel by panel is memorible to me. I’ve never seen someone do that before, by putting so much detail in every panel to make the face look different then before. Go look at the pages in this issue, like Gus going into his dream, or Jepperd shooting at some men, or the page showing ‘The Preserve. Just great stuff in this. Might be some of the best art in a comic for Vertigo.

This was my pick again for two straight issues in a row. Lemire’s pacing works for me now and how I still cannot emphasis enough on how beautiful this comic looks. I know a lot of people are iffy on reading this series in issues and they want to switch to trade. I think that this title completely works in a monthly format. You just have to get used to the pacing, which helped me out on loving this series so much.