Review by Karl Verhoven

For anyone who’s heard good things about Gideon Falls and is considering the hardcovers instead of the trades, the advice is to go for it if you like your horror atmospheric rather than explicitly gruesome. Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino don’t shortchange on grisly moments, but their preference is for suspense and tension. If you’re unsure or cost is an issue, head for the very acceptable trades beginning with The Black Barn.

Taken as a series, Gideon Falls is a grim view into an unknowable abyss, a challenge of faith and an examination of two very different worlds. The way in is via the allocation of Father Wilfred Quinn to a new parish well out in the boondocks, although before we meet him we’ve already spent some time with the troubled Norton Sinclair and his obsessions. “Quiet is not what I need right now”, says Wilfred on learning of his new posting, “Idle hands and all that”. Little does he know. The primary cast is rounded out by Sheriff Clara Sutton, her doctor father, and therapist Angie Xu, gradually pulled into Sinclair’s world of collecting shards of wood.

Artist Andrea Sorrentino and colourist Dave Stewart combine to create an otherwordly atmosphere from the beginning, Sorrentino drawing stark, simple locations and accentuating shadow while Stewart keeps the colours dull and muted. When he switches to bright red, it’s time to get out of Denver. Unusually for comics, the cast are different ages, well defined by Sorrentino, and when Gideon Falls really opens up with some revelations for the final third his art keeps astounding pace in adapting to it.

A black barn is key. Sinclair is collecting pieces of what he believes it to be, while Quinn’s actually been inside before this volume closes, and starts to wonder if he’s had a genuine religious vision. Religion is a connecting feature as faith is tested and those who have none, or who discarded it, find themselves lacking a lifeline, and the same is likely to apply to readers confronted with the inexplicable. For the two-thirds of this collection the mysteries are strong enough for Lemire to hide something in plain sight, after which there’s a switch to the past and the experiences of another priest, Father Jeremiah Burke, who undergoes a horrific journey.

As brilliant as this all is, what’s included here is largely just the scene-setting prologue. It details an unpleasant journey of discovery for several people and puts them in a place where they’re going to have to apply what they’ve learned, although not everything has been revealed yet. Where they end up is revealed in The Eater of All Things.