Writer, Penciller: Patrick Horvath / Letterer: Hasan Otsmane-Elhaou / Design: Nathan Widick / Editor: Jamie S. Rich / Collects: Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees #1-#6 / TP / Publisher: IDW
Review by: Paul Dunne
Date 2nd October 2024 (Released: 18th September 2024)
The Pitch: Don't. Murder. The locals. This is small-town serial killer, upstanding citizen, and adorable brown bear Samantha Strong's cardinal rule. After all, there's a sea of perfectly ripe potential victims in the big city just beyond the forest, and when you've worked as hard as Sam to build a cozy life and a thriving business in a community surrounded by friendly fellow animal folk, warm decor, and the aroma of cedar trees and freshly baked apple pie... the last thing you want is to disturb the peace. So you can imagine her indignation when one of Woodbrook's own meets a grisly, mysterious demise-and you wouldn't blame her for doing anything it takes to hunt down her rival before the town self-destructs and Sheriff Patterson starts (literally) barking up the wrong tree.
With its first issue released in October 2023, BTTWNS is a late contender for the little-known but much-coveted weirdest Book of the Year award. It's a ceremony I host every year in my head. Speaking of the life of the mind, the book treats you to the inner life of Samantha, the lead character and narrator of the story. I should probably mention at this stage that Samantha is an anthropomorphised bear, living in Woodbrook, a town populated by other anthropomorphised animals of all types. Still with me, my furry friend? Good. Because Samantha is also a serial killer, who plys her hobby in the big city, keeping her hometown unsullied. Apart from the burial of her victims, which is witnessed by other animals, who lack the humanisation that seems to be rife amongst the various characters. Are you still in? OK, let's press on...
If you can imagine Henry Portrait Of A Serial Killer re-enacted by the Sylvanian Families, co-written by Beatrix Potter and Andrew Kevin Walker, you might be close to picturing what the book is like. The cover for the first issue was a bit of a giveaway, largely, I feel because someone had the good sense to imagine an unsuspecting parent picking this up for a small child only for the lawsuits to begin flying when little Freddy reads something akin to having the 'Suzy Homemaker' version of Aileen Wournos, strapped into a bear suit, hacking up Donald Duck.
There's good stuff between the lines here about the humanisation we endow pets with and the natural instincts we curb when we domesticate animals (although very few of the animals in this could be kept as pets en masse, the way we do with Dogs and Cats). Also interesting is the fact that there are wild animals in the woods too, including foxes and other, larger bears. Are the voices Samantha kills to dull a form of psychosis or just the call of the wild? Interestingly, for an animal - even one that owns a hardware store - Samantha chooses to kill in very human - some might say even humane - ways, sedating her victims and then dividing them neatly into pieces. I guess even comics fall into the trap of trying to sell you on the 'good murderer' trope, like Dexter. This wants to have its cake and eat it, with someone committing murders in Woodbrook and leaving the bodies on public display, something Samantha would never do because she knows the chaos and attention it would bring. She resolves to solve the murder herself and find the other killer, just in case the police stumble on the wrong one. There are hints that the murder starts to reveal the more aggressive traits of the town's inhabitants, again acting in an all-too-human manner when they suspect the gentlest folk of having done the worst of things. The mob mentality comes into play, even as Sam's almost benign investigation begins. Sam is a kind of nexus of calm justice, despite her bloody foibles and sets about making sure the ruder townsfolk get put straight. We get that most beguiling of animals, the red herring, but Sam is soon back on the trail for the killer, making for a weirdly exciting hunt in a strangely calming place. Do they have murders in Disney land?
Sam finds herself in the position of both investigator and criminal as she hunts for her 'competition'. But Sam's mission has an altruistic bent, wanting to keep the pristine town clean, and the filth in the city where she leaves it. Sam runs a hardware store and the bloodstains on cans of white paint tell you that the bad stuff always comes to pollute the good eventually. There's a question here, as to why anthropomorphising of animals is tied in so often with murder and conspiracy plots, something we've seen often in works like Blacksad and Grandville. This is not a comment on unoriginality and that's not a comment I can make, anyway, as I crack open my nine hundredth and fifty-first superhero comic. Just musing on why we like death and animals so much. I think even Horvath wants to know, as he allows Sam a moment of rewilding towards the book's end.
Horvath has a great style, calming and sedate in the first pages before letting you in on the darkness in the latter moments. He takes time, using the decompression usually found in more action-orientated books to build character and world alike. He uses recognisable almost storybook traits for the residents of Woodbrook, creating familiar notes that help ease the story along with some nice character moments. Best of all, he takes his time, even in a book that only runs a scant 152 pages. As an artist, he makes the world painterly and green, using soft strokes to build a calming world, with dark blood burbling beneath. As always, Otsamne-Elhaou provides excellent lettering, allowing the voices of Horvath's creatures to come through. Samantha's voice, like the art, is calming, even as she's dissecting fellow creatures like they're in a high-school science lesson. 'Why?' is always the most pertinent question with serial killers and I think Horvath gives a good answer toward the book's end... You can never quiet down the animal within.
Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees TP is out now. Buy it from Gosh! Comics and get an exclusive bookplate.
