Set for release in March, the new Image book Gideon Falls is set to send readers on a complicated and intriguing ride.
Gideon Falls 1
Written by Jeff Lemire
Art by Andrea Sorrentino
(This is a review of an advanced digital copy. Spoiler free.)
I’ve never been a fan of horror movies. For whatever reason, I just never developed a taste for them. With rare exceptions, horror movies usually just go for the cheap scares instead of delving deeper into the psyche for something more than the visceral. A good horror comic book, though, allows the reader to develop that reaction, allowing the mind the opportunity to fall into its fears and develop something possibly worse than what appears on the page. It serves more as a psychological thriller.
With the debut issue of the new Image Comic GIDEON FALLS, the creative team of Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino (Green Arrow, Old Man Logan) are already starting to pry into the minds of their readers.
Lemire is a master at executing stories driven by the characters he creates, and over the course of 30 or so pages of the inaugural edition, Lemire introduces the reader to the main characters. Before the issue comes to an end, they feel fully alive and a part of this new world. A priest, Father Fred, reluctantly traveling to the small town of Gideon Falls to take over the church after the former pastor died; and a man, Norton, obsessed with a mission he doesn’t fully understand that is drawing him closer to madness.
While we get an idea of Norton and what drives him, we don’t quite get what makes Father Fred tick, though it’s apparent something from his past affects him. The priest, for now, is the eyes of the reader, discovering the facts surrounding his new arrangements while we come along for the ride. Small towns always have big secrets, and we get just a small taste of what’s to come here, as Lemire deftly drops hints that something is amiss.
The story is enhanced considerably by Sorrentino’s art, which sets an ominous mood, both in the town of Gideon Falls and the city where Norton follows his mission. Each panel adds a little more to the puzzle, and the expressions on the faces of the characters Sorrentino draws reveals just as much as the words Lemire places on the page. The combination drew me in quick and, before I knew it, I had read the issue three times, each time discovering something I had missed the time before.
Of course, this is only the first issue, and there is so much more to come: more secrets, more twists and more deceptions and half truths to unravel. The first issue of GIDEON FALLS is a masterful teaser that left me wishing I could keep going with the story.
GIDEON FALLS is published by Image Comics and is set for a March 7 release. The book is available for preorder now at Comixology and your local comic book shop.