Remember how I said this was ‘by far, the best comic on the stands today’? Yeah…..might’ve been a bit premature with that.

Let me explain. With this issue, and also the last, the pacing of this series has be a bit too slow for my liking. This problem has already cropped up earlier in the series, and it’s one of the reasons why a lot of people switched to trade. To me, I am fine with the slow burn of this series but within reason.

This is a solid issue to be sure, Lemire is a pretty damn good writer all around. The scene in the beginning with the cultists was really exciting to read. Also, the huge revelation that Lemire gives us with Gus is pretty shocking. (Albeit a bit underplayed) To me, I think Jepperd in the present is being used way too much here. We get it Lemire, he is over the brink emotionally and he wants to commit suicide. But he can’t because he needs to save Gus but he doesn’t have the drive for it yet. Doing this the first two issues of the new arc is fine, but to keep hammering it on and on plus underplaying the more important aspects of the story is now getting annoying.

The art though keeps reminding me why I love this series. Everything looks so seamless with the layouts and the pacing. Whether it’s a big action scene, or just Dr. Singh talking in general looks really good. Even big artists like Reis or Coipel don’t do what Lemire can do quite easily. I mean just look how he opens the book with the crows. Little touches like that show accomplished of an artist he really is.

With all my complaints on the focus of Jepperd in the present, by no means is makes it a bad comic. I still think Lemire is sorta licking his wounds when it comes to writing a monthly series. If this was like Essex County or just a trade in general, Lemire could make this all work brilliantly. Just that if he focused a little less on depressed Jepperd, and more on Gus I would’ve liked this issue more. Hell when we got to the end of the issue, I felt like it was a mistake and I was missing a few pages in my copy. Cause that was not a good way to end an issue. Still….it’s an enjoyable issue even with the flaws.