Bone Orchard Mythos: Ten Thousand Black Feathers
Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino; Dave Stewart, colorist
Image Comics, 2023

Lemire and Sorrentino return for their second full-length entry in the Bone Orchard Mythos universe. Trish and Jackie were best friends and avid gamers before high school, and they bonded over gaming and fantasy novels. Trish returns as an adult: she became a successful fantasy novelist, but her career has stalled out. Trish immediately starts seeing Jackie calling her to another reality. This is confusing, because as far as the world is concerned Jackie is a missing person.

Flashbacks show the pair collaborating on fantasy world building, complete with maps and character names. Once they get to high school things start to change: it’s no longer cool to hang out in a basement together. One fateful night they attend a party with older students, and Jackie disappears (but not before accusing Trish of having no idea of what is really going on).

Back in the present, Trish starts to see herself as some kind of magnet for evil, as people around her start dying in violent and mysterious ways, accompanied by the flurry of the titular ten thousand black feathers. She finds herself at the entrance to a dark pipe, which leads her to familiar desolate wastelands with ash-filled skies. There she finds and rescues Jack, and realizes that they do not need to go home: this place is their home, and always was. It’s a bleak and mystical ending, but it somehow works. Sorrentino and Stewart’s visuals are absolutely stunning. Beautiful, mysterious and sometimes brutal, they keep the story grounded. The collection ends with a gallery of variant covers.

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Night Fever
Ed Brubaker, writer; Sean Phillips, artist; Jacob Phillips, colorist
Image Comics, 2023

The creative team took a break from the Reckless series of graphic novels for this stand-alone story. Publisher’s agent Jonathan Webb is in Europe on a business trip for a book festival and can’t sleep. He finds himself wandering the night in a strange foreign city with his new friend, the mysterious and violent Rainer, as his guide. Rainer shows Jonathan the hidden world of the night, a world without rules or limits. Soon Webb finds himself engaging in all sorts of unusual behavior (for him): fearless gambling, followed by vengeance against those who ran him down and robbed him, then an encounter with a young French woman.

Arriving back at the hotel late, he remembers that he used to send his wife a postcard every day he was away from home. But now it feels awkward, and he can’t find the words. Plus, he begins to abandon his professional responsibilities at the publisher’s booth: he really does not feel like himself. Thinking the previous night’s adventures were a unique experience, never to be repeated, he goes into the evening with no plans. But Rainer comes by to drive to a new caper, a burglary. As usual unexpected things happen, ending with a confrontation with an author that Webb represents. In the morning the police ask him to identify the body, and Rainer is talking about a deal they made (which he does not remember). In the end the two meet up, and it is clear that Rainer intends to set Webb up for a murder, as well as the break-in earlier. Webb surprises him, and next thing we know, he is headed home, in the clear.

This is a story with an unusual character arc: regular guy discovers that he has criminal tendencies; acts on them and gets away with it; then goes back to his life, happy to be back to normal. It’s a little like Kill or Be Killed, with a bit of Criminal flavor. But it has a unique tone, and is highly recommended to Brubaker/Phillips fans.