Read our review of The Butcher’s Boy #1 from Dark Horse Comics, written by Landry Q. Walker with art by Justin Greenwood.
We reviewed the book on the Stack podcast. But in the interest of highlighting more about the title, here’s a summary of the conversation with our thoughts. And if you prefer the longer audio version, that’s below as well!
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The Butcher’s Boy #1 Review:
In this issue, we’re following a group of frenemies who travel to a remote town to see a spooky mine. Only by the time they get there we, the readers, already know the heinous things that are about to happen to them. Specifically the first half of the book is spent showing how everything has gone horribly wrong by Saturday — then cuts back to Friday before it all goes downhill..
“The structure of this was great,” said host Alex Zalben. “As a horror movie, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before where it just gives up the ghost at the beginning. And it’s like, ‘Yep, all these folks are gonna die. It’s terrible.’ … It gives this ticking time bomb of a clock, we spend the second half of the issue getting to know these characters, who are all terrible people and we kind of want to see them die. So yeah, great horror movie set up, very into this.”
Pete LePage lauded the “insane cover” though wanted more characters he could root for in the book.
“They’re not monsters,” added Justin Tyler. “Everyone has issues with each other, and so they start bickering… I think they’re still likable despite the fact that one guy’s being sort of a d**k about the girl he has a crush on.”
Tyler continued, comparing it to Rogue One. “The same way that Rogue One, you go into that story being like, well, this is a sad story where these people are all going to die. [From] their introduction they’re [dying, or in] horrifying moments… It’s great and I’m surprised I haven’t really seen that in a horror movie. This comic is a horror movie waiting to happen.”
The Butcher’s Boy #1 Official Synopsis:
Deep within the backroads of the Pacific Northwest, an entire town fell victim to the brutal cleaver of the Butcher of La Perdita. But that was more than a hundred years ago, and in that time the generational nightmare of murder and meat has been reduced to morbid clickbait folklore for bored travelers to share online.
And yet some say the Butcher still haunts the streets at night, seeking fresh meat for his larder. A true Lovecraftian horror? Or just the feverish dreams of a mentally unstable serial killer. Six friends on a road trip are about to find out . . .
