Writer / Penciller / Letterer: Tyler Crook Editors: Daniel Chabon, Chuck Howitt-Lease / Designer: Patrick Satterfield / Digital Art Technician: Josie Christensen Collects: The Lonesome Hunters #1-#4 / TPB / Dark Horse Comics
Review by Paul Dunne
28th March 2023 (Released: 22nd February 2023)
The Pitch: From Russ Manning Award-winning and Eisner-nominated Harrow County co-creator Tyler Crook comes this supernatural fantasy about loss, power, and destiny. An old and out-of-practice monster hunter in hiding crosses paths with a young girl that forces him to confront these chaotic creatures. As the beasts invade their tenement they set off on a supernatural road trip to stop these ancient evils in a story that explores the ways that youth informs adulthood and how early traumas can haunt us in old age.
There's an odd little subset of fiction, most commonly expressed in cinema, of the aging male character (often a thief or con man), taking on a younger female apprentice, to whom he becomes a father figure. Peter Bogdanivich's Paper Moon is probably the most famous example. In his first work as both writer and artist, Tyler Crook uses this as an entry point into a strange tale of Magpies becoming men, magical swords, church cabals, and demons. And it's goddamned great! If there’s a through-line in Crook’s work, it may be that magic takes on all shapes and can be found in places you least expect. Here, he finds it in the depressed American urban landscape. There's a lovely feel to his work, which seems to cast everything in the Depression era (even though the story clearly isn't set there). And no, this isn't some weird recession fetishism of mine - or his. He's just got a quality about his art and stories, you know.
A young Howard: The mis-judged disappointment.
Crook has been working on this in one form or another since 2012, back when it was titled 'The Old Man and The Magpie'. You should know going in that this book is short and fast. 4 issues, 32 pages an issue... And every one packed with detail, atmosphere, character, and incident. Lupe, our lead, meets Howard in the direst of circumstances. Both of them are misjudged to be disappointments at different times in their lives and the stain of that is something they carry. You can't help but empathise with them. They're orphans, clinging to each other as the world grows strange and disquieting around them. Like Mignola, Crook creates weirdness from nature, building a version of the world that whilst implausible to the larger truths is believable within the story. "Those birds talk!" Howard is warned at one point. And talk they do. To his credit, Crook gives everyone a voice and a mission. Some of those are nefarious, but they're present and motivated. Not having to fill 5 or 6 issues means the book has a wonderful economy. You don't get bored. You don't have time. Howard and Lupe don't stop. They're too busy running away from - running to - the next problem. But Crook still finds time for little details
Look closely. There’s guilt on these faces.
Crook's art remains as gorgeous here as it was on The Stone King and Harrow County. His washes are rich with texture and beautifully lit. The faces of his characters have time etched on them and a history to tell. There's a ton of guilt, even on young Lupe's visage. The colours here are more burnished and sun-kissed in keeping with the daylight setting of the opening chapters, but darkness soon creeps in. The's a glimmer in the eye of the magpies, one that serves as a warning... They're always thinking, always planning. You know, at four issues, it's just the entre-act. But the second book, The Wolf Child, has been announced for the end of May 2023. There's more darkness to come. Like the sound of the Magpies cawing, you can feel it calling to you...
Don't trust those birds and keep your sword at the ready. This is gonna be a long hard trip!
The Lonesome Hunters Vol. 1 is available from your local comic shop. The first issue of Vol. 2, The Wolf Child is released on 31st May 2023.
