| Title: | Nail Biter |
| Contributors: | Joshua Williamson Mike Henderson |
| Publisher: | Image Comics |
| Issue #: | 4 |
| Year: | 2014 |
| Pages: | 32 Pages |
| Age Rating: | 18 (Language, Violence, Gore, Adult Themes) |
| Story Grade: | A |
| Art Grade: | C |
For such a great book, there are some continuity issues with it and I want to get those out of the way before getting to all of the good. There are some art issues with this book. The first of the issues that occurs involves this setup: The two lead characters are in a cemetery doing some grave digging. There is several panels, some wide, some close ups on the characters both before and after the continuity problem with the art. The problem itself is on Page 5, Panel 4 and involves a water bottle that does not have a complete top. The first problem with this bottle is that the bottle has only a partial spout. It comes across as if part of the drawing remained unfinished. The second problem is that the character drinking from the bottle is talking while the bottle is shoved into her face. The third problem is that the bottle was never referenced as being in a character's hand, sitting on the ground or being a materialized object in any of the panels, before or after panel 4 of page 5. This is a continuity issues that raises the question, "Did she pull that bottle from her ass?"
A second problem, which follows shortly after the water bottle panel is where one character is standing inside a hole a digging out a grave. A gunshot is fired in one panel and in the next panel the character that was previously digging inside the grave is now standing outside grave, jumping back into the grave and yelling at someone else to get down. Then in the next panel both people are inside grave taking cover from rapid gunfire.
This caused me to ask the question, if he was already in the grave, why did he jump out of the grave only to jump back in. He wasn't jumping out and pulling the other character into the grave... he was simply jumping out and back into the grave. This was the second instance of the art forcing me to stop, look back at the previous panels to determine if I missed something, only to find out it was just bad storytelling in the art. This is definitely a pace-breaker and to break the pace of the story during an action sequence like that it's the last thing you want to do as a storyteller.
These aren't huge issues, but they were worth pointing out. Now on to the good stuff about the book.
This story is getting really exciting and it's obvious that Williamson and Henderson are having fun as they carefully craft the plot devices in this series.Williamson and Henderson are taking a clever approach to crafting the horror involved in this story instead of resorting to the standard gore most other horror stories use. There is some gore in this series, obviously it's about serial killers, but gore isn't splashed across every page. Instead the gore is used only when needed and this allows Williamson and Henderson to use the story itself to build the tension while using the character's and their dialog move the story along while providing some of the much appreciated pop/horror-culture references like the very entertaining Silence of the Lambs reference in the book. This reference actually made me chuckle because it was that funny.
All in all, even with the two glaring issues in this book, I graded this book a solid B. The artwork needs a little more attention to detail, but where the art is having issues, the story is definitely excelling.
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