November 15, 2008
Recently, Hernandez has become as prolific as he is proficient. Besides maintaining his half of the Love and Rockets franchise, he has produced compelling original graphic novels, including Sloth (2006) and Chance in Hell (2007) as well as this book, which begins as a quirky tale about a devil-mask-wearing Peeping Tom terrorizing a bland suburban community and escalates into a grisly account of brutal serial murders. If high-school gymnast Val, her busty young cocktail-waitress stepmother, Linda, and moody classmate Paul arent as well-developed as weve come to expect Hernandezs protagonists to be, theyre fascinating in their quiet perversity. It goes without saying that any effort by Hernandez, even a relatively minor one such as this, will be marked by deft visual storytelling and pictorial panache. If the suburban setting doesnt provide the flamboyant vistas found in his Heartbreak Soup stories (Palomar, 2003), its B-movie milieu offers its own expressive opportunities. The worldview here may be dark and cynical, but its over-the-top violence and exorbitant body count suggest a cannily knowing, slightly tongue-in-cheek slasher film.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)