Tim Seeley

i am a girl of simple tastes. you show me damian wayne admitting he cares deeply about dick grayson and is terrified of losing him, and you show me dick grayson admitting that one of his more shameful thoughts was that he would make a better father to damian than bruce would, and i order seconds and thirds and they eventually kick me out of the restaurant because they're worried about me.

Some full-on moments of horror in this volume, as the revivers experience some dissociative affects of their return from the dead, and the strange wraiths haunt the woods. Dana Cypress hunts her sister's killer in earnest, with a little help from her sister, the murder victim. All sorts of strange troubles and doings sre brewing, from the white supremacist stirring things up, the journalist investigating the disappearance of the three brothers Em killed last volume, a figure in black setting show more fire to a university professor's office, and the professor himself possibly connected to Em's death. It's getting tangled and troubled in Wisconsin, and this is absolutely brilliant. show less

This is really the pits.

The writing of this comic is so bad, it was hard to finish even though it is just 5 short issues. The story is a jumbled mess, where one unconnected event follows another, concluding in a lousy ending that has no relation to anything previously established. Add to that the fact that every piece of dialogue is a clammy, on-the-nose, shit piece of exposition, that jams explanatory backstory into every crevice, and you've got a really embarrassing reading experience. I show more mean, every character addressing each other by their relationship ("Hello, good to see you my cousin") is just painfully bad.

And it's really a shame, because the concept is fun, and the artwork is great. But ugh.... that writing couldn't have been any worse had it been done by a damn dirty ape. show less

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for misogyny, violence against women, and self-harm.)

-- 3.5 stars --

"They put us together so we weren't dangerous. They fucked up."

When YouTube influencer Kellyn West is attacked by one of her 9.2 million fans, she prevails - kind of. After smashing her would-be slasher Clay Coogan to bloody bits with a backhoe, a "secret judge" declares Kellyn an "Eve" - short for "endemic victim" - and sends her to show more Sacred Lamb, a sort of witness protection compound for similar survivors. Based on the theory that such savage and widespread violence is like a bug, Eves are sentenced to Sacred Lamb as much for society's protection as their own, to prevent the collateral damage that copycats and versions of the slashers "previously unknown to science" (whatever that means) might wreak.

While there, Kellyn meets the very first Eve - Diana Grell, the infamous babysitter who survived the Soulsaver massacre, and inspired the Soulsaver Act of 1979. She's as creepy as you'd think, pushing a baby doll around in a squeaky stroller and popping into other survivors' houses uninvited. But when everyone's victimizers are resurrected within Sacred Lamb's walls - even those declared legally dead - Diana might be the Eves' best shot at survival. Well, that and their own audacity.

SACRED LAMB is a bit of a mixed bag. You can tell that the story wants to make a Larger Point about society: whether it's the folly and cruelty inherent in victim blaming, or the dangers of misinformation, "fake news," and conspiracy theories, all of which seem to spread like a contagion. And it does succeed, to a degree - but ultimately I felt like some of the more supernatural elements of SACRED LAMB distracted from the social critique.

I do so love seeing a bunch of incel, would-be slashers getting their asses handed to them by a group of women who were deemed to be damaged goods, and then locked away for their own good (echoes of institutionalization, anyone?) - despite having survived the first round. show less