3 out of 5

Fine – I was not expecting to like ‘Shame.’  I’ve been interested in Renegade Press and ordered a few of their first releases, but after a questionable one-shot (the London ‘Shade of Grey’), I cast an askew glance toward Shame’s very Sandman-esque fairytale painted stylings and the seemingly overly poetic prose and noted when flipping through.  It is a fairytale.  And the prose is poetic.  But is it ever a dark turn of events, and while character names like Shame and Slur may seem bumblingly obvious, accepting Kindzierski’s writing as channeling classic tale-makers – Hans Christian Andersen, for example – makes the style click into place, and the click haltingly off track as things get more and more twisted.  So credit is due: the tale goes all the way in trying to bring a bit of evil into the world, and the up-front planning that required making this a three part series means that the origin in ‘Conception’ doesn’t have to feel rushed.  Kindzierski and painter John Bolton properly set up Mother Virtue, her wish for a child, the wish-borne child’s surrounding by goodness… such that the roadblocks along the path that leads that child toward depravity are earned in the text, and meaningful when overcome.  Though this is a point of view achieved in retrospect.  ‘Conception’ actually reads a little disjointed, not quite achieving the natural mysticism heights of those classic fairytales, the elements that come out of nowhere really seeming like nowhere and not natural extensions of the world.  Bolton’s art also hiccups inconsistently at points, particularly with young Shame, but the grody bits and pieces are delightfully grody and Corben-esque.

So the experience is a mixed bag.  But the mixture in the bag has a lot of unique bits and pieces, and definitely bumps up my appreciation of Renegade’s selections.