Comics Review: "Thumbprint" #1-3

- by Señor Editor, 6 December 2013

Ever since he started his fantastic „Locke & Key” comic on IDW, Joe Hill rose to comicbook superstardom. His currently running “The Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland” mini series is quickly proving to be equally entertaining, but as I wait for the final issue of “Locke & Key”, I decided to check out Hill’s three-issue series from earlier this year, called “Thumbprint” - a story about a dishonorably discharged Iraq war veteran.

“Thumbprint” is an adaptation of Hill’s novella by the some title, converted into comicbook form by Jason Ciaramella, with art by Vic Malhotra. I haven’t read the original story, so everything about this comic was completely new to me. Much like his father, Stephen King, Hill is a very talented writer, and all his works I’ve read so far had me hooked. Hell, “Locke & Key” is probably one of the best comics in recent years. So I had some expectations when picking this title up.

As the story opens we meet Private Mallory Grennan. Mal returned from Iraq a few months back. She was stationed in Abu Ghraib, and one of the things she did there was torturing and sometimes killing detainees, who the army suspected had something to do with bomb attacks on US soldiers. She did a lot of nasty stuff there, forcing confessions out of the detained people, humiliating them – awful things done by soldiers fighting in the senseless war, seeing their friends die every day. 

Mal came back to the States, with a lot of regrets tormenting her, just in time to bury her father, who was an all-around good guy and a medic during the Vietnam war. She works in a bar that her father and his vet friends used to meet, and she’s constantly reminded what a great man he was, which in turn pushes her to think about how disappointed he’d be in her, had he known what her own military service was like. To top it all off, Mal’s boss is a real asshole, who constantly tries to have sex with her. Clearly, things are grim as all hell.

Everything turns even worse, though, when Mal returns home to find an envelope at her door step. Inside the envelope is a piece of paper, with only a thumbprint on it. Mallory doesn’t know what it means, but feels the “letter” is a threat. She’s being watched by somebody, and as the days go by, more envelopes with a single thumbprint keep on coming.

Everything after this is pretty damn brutal.

So this all sounds pretty promising, right? An already traumatized and tormented woman, trying to figure out who the hell is sending these and why, constantly going back to her dark times in the military and looking for an answer in the past. A nice thriller, even if it’s depressing as hell, something that Malhotra’s art only emphasizes. There’s a mystery to solve, there’s an atmosphere that gets to you, and you really want to know what happens next. There’s a lot of tension here.

Even though it’s hard to “like” Mal, I’d say that Hill doesn’t really show her as somebody whose one-dimensionally evil or anything like that – she’s did some horrible things, she’s trying to move past them. She’s very realistically written, and even though she’s not a good person, she’s been through so much horrible things, that I wanted her to make it through this and reach some sort of peace of mind.

So everything about this story is handled really well, and we’re on the edge of our seat, until the third issue.

Without spoiling anything, I will say that the ending really falls flat here. This story goes deep into the psychology of the characters, the trauma, how it affected them, but when we finally find out who and why keeps sending these thumb prints, it feels a little uninspired. As far as I see it, the only thing you really take away from the story’s finale, is basically “yeah, so war is bad, people do bad things, and this stuff really can do your head in”. Nothing really beyond that, or more specific and relevant to the story.

Mal finds the first print.

This was a novella first, so it’s perfectly alright if that was the only thing Hill wanted to say in a short story like that, but it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed. It somehow seems less than what Hill is capable of, but I don’t think he’s to blame here. I can see why IDW wanted to have some more comics out with Joe Hill’s name on them, but it seems they picked this one seemingly at random. It’s not bad, but it feels like this story was never intended to be anything but a short story Hill wrote, and what may have worked in that context, doesn’t necessarily work when you make it into a comic, frame it differently. It seems like having another Joe Hill comic out was the only reason to make this adaptation (the cover boasts “Joe Hill’s Thumbprint”, making sure to catch the attention of the author’s fans right away).

The art is alright; it’s fitting, though nothing to write home about. The writing is good, but I’d find it hard to believe that anybody thinks this is one of Hill’s better stories. It’s an alright one, and fans of the writer may want to pick it up when the trade comes out next week, but it feels like putting together a bunch of b-sides and calling it an album. So, you know, it’s cool, just as long as you don’t expect too much.


Did I miss anything with this comic? School me in the comments! Are you reading Hill's other IDW work? Drop a line below!

Tagged: comics, Reviews.

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