Writer: Jay Faerber
Art: Fran Bueno
Publisher: Image Comics
Release: Dec. 24th, 2014
When Jay Faerber asked artist Fran Bueno what kind of book he wanted to work on, he said, “Maybe horror, or crime, with some romance.” So, Faerber wrote all three into one book. Graveyard Shift is a 4-issue miniseries about a homicide detective and his fiancée as their lives are turned upside-down when one of them is killed by a gang of vampires. There’s always the afterlife, right?
Graveyard Shift is part Buffy the Vampire Slayer and part Castle and Bones all the way down to the cold open. Faerber (COPPERHEAD, NOBLE CAUSES) and Bueno (NOBLE CAUSES) have been working on this comic in between other gigs since 2006. The book hits all the high notes, but at the epic length of four issues total, they have to do some squeezing to fit eight years of notes into about 90 pages of storytelling. Frankly, I’m a little curious to find out how they wrap up the kind of story that has been stretched into 6, 7, and 10-season television shows.
Despite pulling a lot of inspiration from existing pop culture, Graveyard Shift comes off as fresh and interesting. It helps that the crime and horror genres are something audiences never seem to tire of. We know what’s coming, we’ve seen the tropes played out before, but the comic still manages to surprise us anyway. It’s like sitting down to watch your favorite horror movie. You just know something is around that corner, but you willingly prepare to be startled.
It also helps to have likeable characters. The “I’m still drunk” dialogue between the police officers on the very first page puts a humorous and relatable spin on the entire opening scene, grounding us in the humdrum of their everyday lives. At the same time, it instills a healthy sense of doubt that maybe what’s happening isn’t real at all, which suits the book perfectly.
Our main couple, Hope and Liam, break the mold of a lot of “will they, won’t they” story lines by already being in a committed relationship. It’s a mature, relaxed, and intimate relationship, but with a lot of excitement still ahead. Hope is an artist, which archetypes would paint as a wistful, romantic type of person, but she’s strong-minded with good business sense. She and Liam have a relationship of mutual respect, even if Liam’s police force swagger tries to surface sometimes. Hope can keep it in check, and Liam lets her with a smile.
The playful banter between Hope and Liam is perfectly matched to sarcastic eyebrows on both their faces. Bueno’s characters are expressive, and their faces and body language range from intense to subtly heartbreaking. The art throughout the book is bold and detailed, down to the patchy, worn finish of the floor boards, the texture of the bricks in their apartment, and the hundreds of books on the floor-to-ceiling shelves.
Graveyard Shift is filled with clever and sometimes heartbreaking transitions and paneling that push the story forward and play with the reader’s emotions. There are a couple sections that seemed rushed or clustered, as if one frame was missed or edited out for space. My first thought was that they were just editing down to the length of four issues, but then I remembered they have three splash pages in 22 pages of story. It seems they squeezed maybe more than they needed to in order to fit in those pages, but I can’t really complain too much because they’re gorgeous. I suppose I might have rearranged at least one of them if it meant a couple of skipped beats could have been included in the action sequences.
There’s some decent groundwork for the rest of the story here. Faerber and Bueno could have given us a stronger hook to really pull the reader back, like maybe a clue as to the “why” of what’s going on, but it’s a solid read nonetheless. I have an idea of what’s coming next due to the clues Faerber has given in interviews and my own knowledge of how these kinds of stories work, but that “why” is still a mystery. And I want to see what happens to Liam and Hope. Will they have a happy ending? Or is four issues all they get before their story ends?
