Review by Karl Verhoven

Spectors begins with a séance that goes horribly wrong in the 1930s and then switches to Cleveland in the present day and another interrupted occult process. Shannon Eric Denton cultivates a mystery from the beginning by having very similar people in both scenes wearing the same distinctive pink mask, yet if they are the same person as assumed, they don’t seem to have aged much. “There’s still much I’d care not to explain” he replies gnomically, ostensibly continuing the thought of the police arriving, but possibly also referring to an earlier comment about having taught someone a lot. It’s also noted he doesn’t sleep. Can it be that he’s not far removed from the monsters being hunted?

If that’s not enough to stimulate, there’s the immediacy of David Hartman’s artwork. It’s cartooning, but not of the comforting funny type. When horrors are called for, they’re delivered in unusually vivid shades for supernatural material, which tends to rely on the darkness. It distinguishes Spectors without diminishing the fear. It’s also subtle art, showing things without drawing attention to them, and there are times you’ll be flipping the pages back to admire how something’s been set up. The cast are deliberately mismatched to be visually distinctive, and the supernatural elements look evil and threatening.

Denton reveals the secrets slowly, and it’s halfway through before the pair of monster hunters become a trio, acquiring timid brute Ollie chained in a dungeon after disrupting another occult ceremony. The construction is accomplished, with readers given glimpses at people behind nefarious activities eluding our monster hunters, yet Denton also lets readers join the dots on some occasions.

Overall, Spectors is a story of monstrous wrongs satisfyingly avenged, establishing a old-fashioned kick-ass team and keeping enough hidden to set up them for future appearances. Nice.