4 out of 5

Indie comics have had another “boom” recently, but it’s a perplexing trend.  The 80s had the B&W boom thanks to the Turtles, with publishers and books popping up and then going blip overnight.  In the 90s, you had a pseudo-independent boom with the likes of Image, but as the 80s found a lot of genre knock-offs, the 90s were stocked with Spawn… calling it a knock-off is generous, because Spawn was art over story, so just more of that.  I’d say the 00s was actually a pretty good decade for mainstream comics.  Somehow, a sense of independence came back around to the majors, with a new round of writers who weren’t necessarily from the old-school bullpen stepping in and penning original stories that had depth but didn’t require buying in to 50 crossover issues to enjoy.  But someone grew up at some point, and Iron Man became a hit movie and Y the Last Man a graphic novel available at Barnes and Noble and the scene changed.  52 happened, Civil War happened and was mentioned in the newspapers, and now I can’t turn around without seeing the newest glossy that’s restarted with a 0 issue (hauntings of the 90s) and tied in to twenty other books.  It’s a weird mashup, because there’s a huge intermingling of small-press writers getting a chance to swing in the majors, but this is akin to the plugged-in media scene in general, where we all know the cool references to make but are still producing a lot of average art.

However, that leads us to the current “boom” – once again indie publishers, truly standing on their own, but reading and looking completely unlike indie books.  Some have stepped very close to the big leagues (at least in terms of shelf presence; I can’t speak to sales) – Dynamite, IDW – and then you have those publishers who just keep production qualities high and new “hit” titles coming – Oni (around for a while, but stepping up its game with Sixth Gun), Amigo, Archaia, and etc. and etc.  A recent publisher who’s gotten my attention – Titan.  Lots of original properties and well-selected reprints, presented in either solid single issues or, in the case of ‘The Absense,’ a gorgeous hardcover.

I mention all this lead-up because the presentation of ‘Absence’ adds to its creepy, mysterious appeal.  With the cover showing the grotesque grin of one of our leads – Marwood Clay – and the title and image grittily sketched in bright reds and dusky flesh and white colors – the book is eye-catching and off-putting in the right way.  So eye-catching that it’s easy to over-look the appearance of the other lead, Robert Temple, on the back cover, which ends up being part of the loss of star in the rating.  Anyhow, the book gives you confidence, and the crisp B&W interiors, drawn in Stiff’s shaky but, at time, strikingly naturalistic hand, pop off the pages thanks to a nice and thick but flexible paper stock.  There’s really no doubt you’re going to be at least drawn in to the text.

The story tells of Marwood’s return to his hometown after the war, hiding the lower half of his face… all the skin of which is missing, thanks to some unexplained happenstance during the battle.  And the town hates him.  His old friend spurns him, the local officer whom he first meets on his way back to town sneers, the pub all but collectively spits on him.  No one else returned from the war but Marwood, and he’s pretty much told that everyone would rather he’d died.  Sweet.  Elsewhere, we have new occupant Dr. Robert Temple, who seems to have an uncanny way of predicting very specific events before they happen, an oddity that meshes well with the oddity of the house he’s constructing.  Temple isn’t as spurned as Marwood, but the town ripples with a uniting gossip, so all are agreed that he’s weird, and he’s treated as such.  Thus do Marwood and Temple seemingly bond at first.  But when Marwood begins to have flashbacks to the war… that perhaps involve Temple, that perhaps tell of what happened to his face, and when Temple begins to get closer to Helen, the girlfriend-who-never-was for Clay, Marwood turns on his partial compatriot.

From here on out the tale begins to waver a bit.  ‘The Absence’ is a slow-burn, and it’s absolutely well played – you get to know the characters at an appropriate pace, bits of background seeded in at just the right point before the obliqueness becomes a turn-off, and Stiff keeps a slowly building ripple of odd events happening, maintaining the unsettling nature of the book.  And certainly there’s a theme of guilt, and how it haunts us, and that comes across in most every panel and page.  But as is almost inevitable with every ‘reveal,’ there’s a slight disappointment when pieces fall into place.  Stiff does right by not trying to over-mystify or explain some elements that are common enough sci-fi tropes, but their placement in the story – toward the end – doesn’t allow enough room for reflection.  So even though they’re not presented as “twists” by the narration, they’re sequenced as such.  For better or worse, many story elements become something of red herrings.  It’s not offensive because it’s well written, but, again, it’s slightly disappointing once that becomes clear, that despite Clay’s prominent appearance on the cover, it’s actually more Temple’s story than his.

To the art – it really is astounding that Stiff handled all of this on his own, and that this was a first comic book.  The compositions are very accomplished, complicated scenes of the landscape crumbling shuffled around the page to really translate the chaos, and when there’s a “break” from the page-by-page layout, Stiff properly cues us with word bubbles that cross the fold or something similar.  However, his hand is – he admits to this in the backmatter – a bit rushed in spots.  For the splashpages, this adds a really wonderful immediacy, and casual conversations creak and croan with ambience.  But somewhere inbetween these two spots – the BIG and the little – are the panels that are just supposed to be punctuations, and the slapdash nature of his style doesn’t really hit that peak as well.

But all this being said (a phrase I use –way– too much), I haven’t been this engaged in a book for a while.  I didn’t know what to expect from ‘The Absence’ – I couldn’t have guessed at how it was going to use its particular tropes, or at the amount of darkness Stiff was going to allow to blanket the tale.  That it’s “reveal” is stunted as I detailed above is unfortunate, but doesn’t ruin the read in any way, a $20 price point more than worth it for the hours of reading time I got, sifting through the pages, referring back to chapters to double-check some visual ties, specific words said…  Because though it might not, on one read, have that “shock” value that leaves your brain burning, once the direction is understood, it will be something valuable for rereading, which is always a rarity.