October Faction Review

October Faction

writer- Steve Niles

artist- Damien Worm

“Retired Monster Hunter, Thrill-Killer, Warlock and Witch. Sometimes crazy is the glue that binds a family together.” The hottest horror team of our time creeps back into our nightmares with IDW's October Faction.

Steve Niles is a master of things that go bump in the night. In fact, he's a master of things that smash through the night with a rage and violence that bruises the very soul. He's working with Damien Worm, once again, in this amazing tale of a family that can't seem to get away from the family business. And together, the two creators are blowing the doors off everything dark and eerie in the industry.

Worm's art has always been been the kind of art that defies the rules of comic book art. It doesn't stay restricted to its own boundaries. Instead, it permeates the pages and seems to have a life of its own. It practically bleeds life.  In October Faction, this is part of what gives the reader that true horror experience. Worm drags us into the book. He gives us the anxiety we'd feel if we were in that old haunted house, among the smoking sigils carved into the floor and the vengeful wraiths trapped in the closets.

I've loved everything I've seen of his, but I have been critical in the past. In Monster & Madman, I felt that the “bleeding art” style he's known for was a distraction and made it hard to really see what was taking place. In October Faction, there's no doubt that he's perfected his art form and is now taking it up a few notches. Impressed is an understatement. I'm so amazed by the art in this book, that I'm almost ready to eat that criticism of Monster & Madman. But one thing is for sure, Damien Worm's work in October Faction has put him on the top of my favorite horror artists list.

As for Steve Niles' story, he's done it again. Niles has created a family built on dysfunction and disconnection brought on by the family business of hunting monsters. A matriarch that sleeps around as a way of dealing with her baggage, two siblings who don't function well socially, and a controlling patriarch who demands that the children have nothing to do with hunting supernatural baddies. And guess what the kids want to do? So, behind the story is another story and probably another story of the lives of the characters in October Faction. Niles gives up some great family secrets in his story-telling, but he poses more questions that make the series especially intriguing. One wish I have for October Faction is that Steve Niles grows as close to them as he has to Cal McDonald, so that we might visit them again and again and again. But then, whatever Niles has planned for this creepy family is sure to be something great.

We're not going to go as far as to give anything away, so all we can say for now is: pick it up and you'll love it. October Faction is on the shelves anywhere IDW comics are sold.