Best Comics of 2014, No. 3: Outcast

Next entry in the series, an unexpected book that's met with deserved success.

page from issue 1, courtesy of
Entertainment Weekly

I came to Kirkman's Walking Dead through the TV series (which I came to a couple years in when I saw one of the episodes broadcast in B & W and found it quite compelling- wish they did more of those!). I enjoy Kirkman's work on both versions of that story a great deal, even though, as previously noted, I'm not big on zombies. I also enjoyed his work on Invincible, but I didn't keep up with it.
Outcast is a bit different, but with a similar tone to Walking Dead. Perhaps that's to be expected. After all, the same creator is likely to give different works a similar voice. But even with the tension comparable to that of  Walking Dead, this book takes on a markedly different tone. It's a much more personal and quiet form of horror. While post-apocalyptic zombies demand group responses for survival, exorcism and demonic posession are much more personal, almost intimate in an odd way.
The story of Kyle Barnes, a survivor of sorts of demonic  possession, Outcast has a smaller, more intimate ensemble than the rambling Walking Dead narratives or the burgeoning high school cast of Invincible. Kyle's blessing/curse is his innate ability to detect and/or cast out demons- fortunate, since possessions seem to run in his family and town.

Springer cover for contrast

Barnes endures torment after torment. He survives his mother's abuse of him in his youth, which ties into the posession. He takes the hit (so to speak) for his wife beating their child, which makes him more of an outcast in his small town. He allies himself with a man of the cloth, Reverend Anderson (whose denomination isn't clear), who is also a posession survivor.
It's a somber book at times, with a much slower pacing than Kirkman's other efforts. The art works seamlessly with the script to complement the mood. Colorist Elizabeth Breitweiser uses tightly controlled and subdued palettes, which blend seamlessly with artist Paul Azaceta's thick lines and just sparse enough backgrounds. While it's not a perfect parallel, Azaceta's work here reminds me of Frank Springer's work on the original DC series Secret Six from the late 1960s.
The first TPB is out. While I've been picking up the floppies, I'll probably check out the TBP from the Library, just to see how the pacing works in a collected volume.
Much has been written on the Interwebs about trademark issues, the "scandal" of Outcast being optioned for a series after only one issue, and other matters of comics/media politics. To these histrionics, I say, "pfaugh." While I like a good media blitz as much as the next gal, I have little use for it in evaluating a comic on its own merits.
And seen on its own merits, Outcast is a more, dare I say it, thoughtful horror book than many of those around. While Kyle's ongoing torment does get a tad tedious at times, the book is well paced enough to remedy that particular problem.
And unlike Walking Dead, Outcast is intended as a finite series, which gives us the greatest rarity in horror comics: hope.

Next: Best of 2014, No. 2: a neglected bit of comic strip history!