CROSS BONE STYLE: Review of Akira Hiramoto, Me and the Devil Blues<\/span><\/span> (poss. volume 1): In this manga Robert Johnson sells his soul to the Devil at the crossroads. The first half of this book explores the terrible consequences for himself and those around him. The second half hooks him up somehow with Clyde of Bonnie-and, and takes Clyde\u2019s POV for the most part as we simmer in miserable anticipation of what will happen to Johnson.<\/p>\n The first thing to say is that this book has what Stephen King calls the \u201cgotta\u201d: I gotta keep reading.<\/span> The art is beautiful and makes everyone look real; both Johnson and Clyde remind me of the misheard lyric, \u201cEverybody\u2019s crazy \u2019bout a shot-dead man.\u201d I loved the character designs for all of the black characters in the almost-all-black opening half. The more openly horrific scenes are generally done as splash pages, with a furry charcoal style I\u2019m not entirely sure I like but which does definitely convey a sense of broken boundaries, blurred identities, and unknown horrors out in the dark.<\/p>\n The pacing is amazing<\/span>. There\u2019s a long sequence in the second half, which if you described it to me I would consider a boring distraction, in which Johnson is captured for lynching and so the POV switches almost entirely to Clyde as he experiences a tiny Southern town which is like\u2026 let\u2019s say if Preacher<\/span> were actually good<\/span>. (Seriously, I\u2019ve never understood the appeal of Preacher<\/span> as much as I did when reading this section. Even the Cormac McCarthy white-whale antagonist is scary! I didn\u2019t think I could still find a horror comic where Southern gothic actually worked<\/span>.)<\/p>\n So anyway, watch the pacing throughout this long, drawn-out horrorshow. Watch how Hiramoto alternates between closeups of a sweating Clyde and background shots of the bar. Watch how a simple \u201cAh,\u201d on page 462, becomes a sign that the blind white man wants to get inside Clyde\u2019s head and destroy his will. Watch the unbearable tension as page 465 builds toward page 469. Every \u201ccamera angle\u201d and every heart-stopping panel border is meant to build the menace\u2026 and it works. This is genuinely one of the most frightening comics I\u2019ve ever read, even though the \u201csmall town evil\u201d trope usually doesn\u2019t work for me. This one made it work. <\/p>\n I won\u2019t tell you what happens next. I will say that this is the first volume of a series, and I need<\/span> that series! I will say that there\u2019s a supernatural-horror development which I initially thought was a bit silly, but by the end of the second half I thought was frightening and poignant. This is the real thing. This is the deepest blues.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CROSS BONE STYLE: Review of Akira Hiramoto, Me and the Devil Blues (poss. volume 1): In this manga Robert Johnson sells his soul to the Devil at the crossroads. The first half of this book explores the terrible consequences for himself and those around him. The second half hooks him up somehow with Clyde of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n