We're BACK! Actually, Lisa and Matt are back with LONG LOST BOOK TWO (this is #7 of 12 issues for those counting at home). The last I knew our sisters, and I'm saying 'our' because that's how comfortable these two characters sit thanks to the development in Book one, were last seen falling into ... well we don't know what the hell they were falling into! Immediately the story picks up as though we'd just turned the page from the last issue. The descent isn't over. There's a nice quick recap of events that is well done not to be forced. It really does feel like Piper is having her thoughts flood as she's helpless to do anything but keep falling. Our plot points and freshened up and how we got here is right on the surface so we can continue the fall along with our sisters and maybe just see where the hell this thing is leading us.Or maybe we get an even deeper mystery. It appears we are introduced, once again, to the same mysterious figure that drew the girls 'back home' except it is drastically changed. I love the choice of visages this time around as it is directly tied to images/renditions of evil, etc that we're used to. However, it doesn't do anything to answer the questions we've got swirling around the underlying mystery at the heart of this story. We get a dose of real world with Piper racking her brain trying to make sense of it all even though everything going on is hardly what we know as 'real world' or even believable. Then we're thrust right into a terrifying situation. The new visage starts what seems to be some informational tell, but ends up seemingly on the attack. The structure of the pages here show off, to a T, just how Lisa Sterle has magnified this creepy tale. This issue starts out dark and takes the color splashes from Book One and swallows them whole. The only bit of color surrounds the word bubbles of the new visage, and it's a threatening red. Even the lighter Piper uses to try and navigate only casts a brightness about its flame but hardly much else. There is a bit of light/bright towards the end in a likely attempt at symbolizing a smidgen of hope, but that's about it. The panels are dark and washed out mirroring the dreadful sense of being that the sisters have found themselves in. The bleak tones and absence of anything but murky landscape holds hands with the terror to drive home the narrative.
In a switch of pace that is a complete 180 from Book One, the opening of Book Two foregoes the slow, icky burn and just pours gas on the flames. The girls hit bottom and we're off to the races. The discovery at the bottom, the new visage, another tough choice, more questions despite hints of answers, and yet another surprise at the end of this opening salvo of Book Two that sets us up for the end slope of this journey. I loved Book One of Long Lost. Loved it. Matt and Lisa have managed to put together a brilliant opening shot of the second part of the story/mid point to the narrative. I don't know if it was intentional or not but this is playing out episodically as if I'm watching a creepy serial show on TV. Usually I don't want that kind of feel with a book. Here though? It's great and makes it that much better.
I highly recommend you grab the Long Lost BOOK ONE collection if you haven't read it. Then get your rear in gear and grab the first issue of Book Two. Long Lost is a damn good read.
You can find Matthew Erman on Twitter @MatthewErman
More of his work will be available in the upcoming CORPUS Anthology as well as the Everything is Going Wrong Anthology
You can find Lisa Sterle on Twitter @lisa_sterle
Her Vault Comics title Sub-Merged just hit stores this month to a fantastic reception
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