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Miller, Russ – Northangle Nocturne #1

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Northangle Nocturne #1

I’d have to say it’s always a good sign when a book wins me over halfway through. That should go without saying, but it’s possible that I’ll start off loving a book and have it go steadily downhill from there, or just maintain a constant level of “blah”, and this one managed to avoid that. It’s the story of a tiny Massachusetts town that lost the only real business enterprise about twenty five years ago, and it’s become a shell of itself, trying to find the next big thing to get it going again. There’s a mayor who’s eccentric and possibly crazy, a man who collects stories, a wandering skeptic, and Sol Syllabub. Sol is the man on the cover, and he’s also the one who tells us (directly) most of what we learn about this town. Which, at the time, struck me as a ridiculous narrative contrivance, as the first part of the comic was set up like a regular old comic, and I really hate it when a writer suddenly starts talking directly to you in the middle. Well, after that gets explained a bit it’s what won me over on the whole thing, but there’s no sense in my blowing that for you here. It’s an interesting first issue, which may or may not fall apart with future issues. Hey, you never can tell, but the man is certainly off to a good start. The $5.75 price tag is insane, but it’s 40+ pages and it looks gorgeous, at least…