“IF I NEVER COME BACK”

Writer: Jonathan Chance
Illustrator: Dell Barras
Colorist: Davi Comodo
Letterer: Wes Loche

---

REVIEW OF PART TWO – HERE

REVIEW OF PART THREE – HERE

REVIEW OF PART FOUR – HERE

---

Opening up this “newest annual event read” with a twenty-three page trip down into the murky depths of a small town’s dirty, disused garden pond, Jonathan Chance arguably seems able to conjure up the atmosphere of Rob Reiner’s 1985 teenage boy drama movie Stand by Me combined with a healthy dose of bone-tingling terror. Indeed, despite many in the audience probably guessing the future fate of poor Arthur Rogers, having earnestly promised the murderous monster he encounters that the lad won’t ever return to tentacled gestalt’s deadly abode in Fairhaven, there’s still plenty of narrative and grisly-goings on to enjoy inside “If I Never Come Back.”

For starters, the story’s first half, which depicts three children bravely forgoing an overpacked swimming lido for an ill-advised dip in a fenced off pool, contains everything a fear-fan would want from such a familiar horror setting – including the so-called protagonists being so busy goading one another to dive in that they never truly appreciate why none of the other locals have ever thought of visiting the same place. In addition, once one of them finally makes the plunge, the storyline solely focuses upon the youth scrambling for a solution to his dire predicament on his own, courtesy of his supposed friends quickly leaving him to potentially a fate worse than death; “I’m sorry Arthur.”

This bargain with the devil beneath the water’s surface is then subsequently explored, as the incredibly lucky survivor risks a fleeting visit to the completely renovated municipality some thirty-two years later so as to settle things with his former pals. As aforementioned, it’s pretty transparent that somehow the now bespectacled father of two is going to somehow inadvertently enter the dread beast’s submerged lair once again, so the writer’s skill comes with him wrong-footing the reader in predicting just how this catastrophic confrontation will occur.

Definitely adding plenty of gratuitous physical mutilation to these published proceedings is Dell Barras, whose pencilling quite wonderfully captures both the wide-eyed innocence of youth in the trio of boys, whilst simultaneously showing a former victim of the skull-faced water creature getting his head squished flat with a multi-suckered appendage. Admittedly, some may struggle to realise that the beast rises to the surface during its early conversation with Arthur, as that sequence isn’t perhaps as clearly sketched as some might like. But there’s no doubting overall that the illustrator does a good job in drawing the hair-raising events as they transpire, and quite unnervingly captures the stark terror on the central character’s face when he realises that he is once again nose-to-nose with the entity that has for so long haunted his thoughts.

---

[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]

The writer of this piece was: Simon Moore
Simon Tweets from @Blaxkleric ‏
You can read more of his reviews at The Brown Bag

---