4 out of 5

This is admittedly maybe graded on a sliding scale relative to the other Shepherd books, but still – this is a solid spook story one-shot, with some nice wrinkles on the genre and a complementary art style (Ramiro Borallo, presumably handling colors as well) that help it to stand above other horror tales.

We’ve gained a Molinari on writing duties; this is also the first of this series to properly read like a comic book – a beginning, proper pacing, and a conclusion – so whether the trio is the key or its the racked up experience or both, things have absolutely improved from a top-down quality standpoint. But the story itself also works well.

Focusing again on the Shepherd kids – the intro text is still all about Professor Miller, so it’s not any help at all if you’re new to this series – they still have their ghost-seeing / guilt-searing powers, and use them to follow a ghost dog to the sight of a dog fighting ring, and its other victims. Borallo’s style is very stylized, but it’s not exactly the typical Boom! style cartoonishness, rather reminding me of a weightier, more expressive Don Bluth style of figurework. Lines are loose but solid, and the characters have personality just upon sight. The colors stick with a darker palette, but it’s a smartly “flat” look that works well with the artist’s lines, keeping things fluid and balanced, without sacrificing the story’s mood.

…Which is nicely bleak. There’s been some cheeseball stuff at the edges of Shepherd, but the Molinaris allow the central sadness of the concept to dominate more, and I think the story is better as a result. Maybe not having to factor in Professor Miller’s theologizing helps; the kids as central characters keeps the emotions very focused. And while the brother and sister (sis narrates) don’t quite have distinct personalities, part of why this reads as a better comic book is that the dialogue / narration is much more restrained overall, letting the art do its work. And I appreciated the penance doled out at story’s end: it was an unexpected wrinkle that felt fitting without being a cop-out.

Lastly, very noteworthy lettering by Joel Rodriguez, finding some fitting font styles for different voices / beats in the story, and layering non-distractingly with Borallo’s art.