3 out of 5

It’s hard not to set this issue alongside last month’s Palindromes, simply by dint of both having some structural quirks.  Issue 13 was told in a manner befitting its title; Down and Across takes one of its lead character’s obsession with crossword puzzles to lay out pages along those lines, and to format the narration as hints and answers.  And unfortunately, the comparison makes this issue come across a little weaker; not only is its concept a bit less complex at a glance, but its story feels rather sleight, both stood next to Palindromes and next to other ICM glimpses of horror.

Which isn’t a fair judgement, of course: Prince’s poetic, precise style is still light years beyond most of his writing peers, and the art team of Martin Morazzo and Chris O’Halloran again deliver immediately recognizable characters and settings, with Good Old Neon’s lettering tasked with slipping between the ‘crossword’ narration voice, dialogue, and some insidious Ice Cream Man niggling thoughts and whispers, pulled off without a hitch.

But it’s still an average issue for the run so far, not really doing anything new with the concept (beyond maybe offering us a happy ending, for once?), and not adding anything to the oddball “backstory.”

In Down and Across, Earl ignores his wife for his crossword puzzles; wife Rita is obsessed with the – as she sees it – hooliganish behavior of the workers building their guest house.  Soon, Earl begins to see questions in his puzzles about his own life, prompting him to fill it in with depressing answers…