4 out of 5

You know what’s rare in comics nowadays?  Books that don’t try to blow your mind with some crazy unique idea – which you’ve already heard in some format or another elsewhere – or give your eyes The Wackadoo via an intro splash page or action sequence… ….that either doesn’t support the story or is clearly the scene into which most artistic effort went, leaving other scenes rather scant.

Dept of Monsterology is exactly what’s advertised by its cover, and that’s not a bad thing because its exactly what you want.  It doesn’t attempt either of the two distractions mentioned above because its not necessary; writer Gordon Rennie knows what kind of story he’s writing and is comfortable enough with his characters to let them speak for themselves, and artist PJ Holden has such a natural grasp of the page that he makes what could elsewhere seem outlandish feel completely organic.  His splash pages feeling like true punctuations in the tale because you are successfully immersed, and his paneling is (ahem) a work of art, sticking to variations of a grid except where breaking the frame or using jagged or angled borders services the content.  Colorist Steven Denton and Letterer Jim Campbell are also integral to this effect: I’ve ordered some other books published by Renegade to see if the quality is similar, but the colors have a very earthy grain to them, where the tones used for skin feels warm, not flat or shiny, and all of the pop colors (generally when there’s magic a’goin’ on) properly juxtapose the green/brown base but without pushing you off the page.  Similarly, Campbell’s lettering is so professionally spaced and placed that I never realized I was reading dialogue, which is sorta’ the goal.  Ideally, the reading experience is seamless, and Dept of Monsterology absolutely conquers that.

The only real problem here is that these initial books don’t really have a central focus.  So when issue 4 concludes, you can’t have a proper conclusion.  We meet Team Carnacki and Team Challenger, two groups working under the banner of ‘The Hampton Foundation’ to study the strange and unusual, each team with a slightly different focus or expertise.  Rennie shuffles us through the oddballs on each team and quickly drops us into their current studies: the former investigating an ancient, Lovecraftian underwater temple, the latter trying to prevent the rival Lamont Institute from abusing the discovery of some Chinese vampires, which naturally results in fighting a ton of Chinese vampires.  These stories are, at this point, completely separate.  We get some flashes to the Foundation where someone is questioning how the Teams operate, but this doesn’t really link the stories – it’s more padded into the issues to, I’d suspect, set up a future tale.  And though the adventures are interestingly and excitingly scripted, we’re not really clear on the consequences at this point.  Team Carnacki ruins the underwater temple for the sake of procuring an artifcat; Team Challenger globe-hopes and astral-projects to wind up in a monster battle.  In a way it’s refreshing that Rennie doesn’t try to over-justify anything, but its also something of a consequence of introductory arcs where you’re not starting at the beginning: unless you want to blow your ‘let’s save the world’ story early, its just business as usual for your principles.  And thus wrapping back around to my praise, its to all of the creator’s credits that they make this ‘usual’ business so satisfying to read.

The back cover tag explains that the Dept is ‘Investigating the dark, forgotten corners of our world, one monster at a time.’  Has BPRD gotten too soapy for you?  Steve Niles’ writing is a bit too pulp?  Dept of Monsterology is a back to basics adventure book, but written with a modern outlook.  It doesn’t bother with trying to sound or feel like any particular era, its just well-scripted, fun, and excellently produced.  Even if these initial issues don’t quite build to an explosive conclusion, you actually get to enjoy reading a comic (no crossovers, no gimmicks), so that’s undoubtedly worth my four bucks.