March Horror Hunter Madness – Abattoir #3 - March 04, 2011

By pghhead -

ABATTOIR #3  of 6 (released 3/02/2011, Radical Comics bi-monthly,  cover date February 2011) . Written by Rob Levin + Troy Peteri. Illustrated by Bing Cansino, Rodell Noora, + Dennis Calero. Coloring by Andrei Pervukhin.  Lettering by Troy Peteri. Cover by Tae Young Choi.

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The dark, painted art of this book sets the proper evocative mood for this grim tale.  ABATTOIR has been a very entertaining horror and detective story that also manages to disturb, and leaves a lingering sense of dread. 

Issue #3 keeps the plot moving forward and shows some progress in realtor Richard Ashwalt’s research as he begins to uncover the background behind the mysterious and creepy Jebediah Crone.  Crone likes to buy scattered properties that all have one thing in common, they were the scene of the murder / slaughter/ suicide  of the former tenants.

The story becomes further complicated as Ashwalt is also a primary suspect in some recent murders, and has been having flashbacks of some eerie events that occurred in his past.  In Issue #2 he made a decision to avoid questioning and run from the law while still trying to continue his investigation of Crone.  He breaks into the last property that Crone purchased and finds some shattered glass with runes in the crawl space where a child hid right before his murder.  This triggers some weird unexplained flashbacks.  It can be hard to be completely sympathetic with Richard’s plight – as these vague glimpses of past events lead to suspicions that he’s not a proper gentleman either.

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I don’t think this is going to turn out well at all - - yet I want to keep reading this title and find out what happens.  Give the writers some credit by slowly building and maintaining a sense of uneasiness. That’s no small chore considering the roster of other creators involved with this book.  Normally, when someone’s idea  (in this case, SAW film-maker Darren Lynn Bousman)  gets passed through a committee (concept by Michael Peterson) it turns out to be disjointed and confused after the third or fourth set of writers get done with it.  On the contrary, that is not the case with ABATTOIR.   I’ll be back in April for Issue #4.

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