Comics Review: "Colder: The Bad Seed" #1

- by Señor Editor, 31 October 2014

Happy Halloween!  There’s been a lot of horror comics released this month, but there’s one that pretty much made all the others pale in comparison, and that’s “Colder: The Bad Seed” #1. No disrespect to “Wytches” and other stuff, but Paul Tobin and Juan Ferreyra straight up excel at making nightmare fuel that’s hard to compete with.

Click for pants-soiling size

If you’ve been reading this site for a while, then you may remember me talking about “Colder”, the horror miniseries from Dark Horse. I loved that book and it really made me keep an eye out for more works of Juan Ferreyra, an incredibly talented artist from Argentina. I wanted to see more of his art and I wanted to read more of “Colder”, so I’m very happy that he and Tobin came back to do a sequel.

In “The Bad Seed” we return to Declan Thomas, the mysterious man whose body temperature keeps dropping, and who can somehow get to the bottom of peoples’ mental illness and cure them. Declan is doing quite good for himself - he’s in a happy relationship with Reece, he continues to help people, and other than the fact that he keeps getting colder, things are going well in his life. And there’s no sign anywhere of Nimble Jack, the bad “guy” from the first series. Happy days!

Not happy days! Declan and Reece don’t know it yet, but there’s a new presence in town. A classically elegant man that goes by the name of Swivel. There are several things we learn about Swivel from this issue: 1) he cuts off and collects people’s fingers, 2) he has fingers for teeth, 3) he can have fingers for not just his teeth, but for a whole finger-y face, 4) he can squeeze a person’s arm or head and milk it like it’s an udder, 5) he likes maggots and eating pigeons. 

See, this is part of why this comic was better than the other horror stuff this month. Sure, “Wytches” #1 was nice, but Scott Snyder isn’t yet on the “face made out of fingers” level. Step your game up, Snyder.

Milkin' it good. All art on this page is © Dark Horse comics. Click to enlarge.

Anyway, we don’t yet know what Swivel wants. Is he just another odd creature that really likes it when things are super insane? Where does he know Declan from? Why are all these freaks (first Nimble Jack, now this dude) after Declan? Time will tell, but for now issue 1 gives us plenty to enjoy.

Tobin and Ferreyra kind of rose to horror comics superstardom since they first teamed-up. As somebody who reads a lot of horror comics, I can say that I think their status is fully deserved. The first volume of Colder looked for the scares in concepts that are not as exploited as what you normally see. It didn’t take the easy route of making horror comics (“Let’s put vampires in this!” or zombies, or werewolves etc). It took real, subtle, disturbing things and amped them up to the point where they’re so terrifying you can lose your mind. “The Bad Seed” barely started, but it already looks like it will be at least a worthy successor.

Declan sorting out a mental homeless dude (sorting out the mental part, at least).

Juan Ferreyra’s art in this is just as amazing as it’s ever been, and he’s fantastic both in the “normal”, happy scenes showing Declan and Reece, as well as the “JESUSF***INCHRISTWHATISTHISTHING” scenes. And I want that guy to continue working with Paul Tobin for as long as possible, because Tobin clearly gives Ferreyra some fine things to draw. If Paul Tobin keeps a notebook with ideas for future comics, he should probably make sure nobody working in mental health ever sees it.

Swivel, doing his fingerface bit.

I am not sure how to finish this review. Buy this comic, I guess! It shows a face made out of fingers on the cover and it delivers on that promise. This is just issue one and it’s already mental. Can you imagine what’s gonna happen in issue two or three? Think about that. Think about it tonight, in your bed. Enjoy your dreams.


Yeah, Happy Halloween! Get this book!! Face made outta fingers!!! Comments below!!!

Tagged: comics, Reviews.

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