Jackson, Rob – Great Deeds Against the Dead #1

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Great Deeds Against the Dead #1

The man does have a knack for excellent titles, doesn’t he?  A scroll down this page will confirm that for you, in case you don’t believe me.  This issue is the projected first half of this story, which is a creepy tale of haunting, lost love and hopelessness.  An old artist (Tisdale Carnegie), devastated after the death of his wife, gets a house as far away from civilization as he can.  The neighbors are curious, as the house has been empty for years, but we don’t see much more from them quite yet.  The agent for said artist, needing some signatures, goes to visit Tisdale and is appalled at the state of the artist, but is unable to leave due to a sudden rainstorm and mudslide.  He is forced to stay for the night but gets the undeniable impression that the house wants him out (possibly because he hears it say “there’s something wrong with this house” three time) and even hurls shingles at him when he goes outside to close the gate.  Curious, the agent looks into the history of the house when he leaves, and runs into a pair of people who are also trying to discover more about the house.  The agent, being delightfully human and utterly uninterested in wrapping this story up neatly, gets a call from another (more profitable) client and runs off, leaving the pair of “psychic adventurers” to check out the place for themselves.  Letting this thing unravel is half the fun and it ends on an utterly bizarre cliffhanger, so no more info from me.  I can’t wait to see what happens next, and to see if that creature on the cover plays any role in things.  There are also two shorter pieces in the book, a silent story about graffiti, a fight and a floating man that flew right over my head and a one page strip on the back cover that details why Rob loves comics.   It’s getting hard to keep track of all the series this man has going, but this one sure looks like a keeper.  $4