Sunday, April 2, 2006

The Dreaming

Between working on projects, Kazu and I stopped by Comics Factory where I picked up this little gem, "The Dreaming". Being another Tokyopop book, I was naturally curious to check it out, not knowing what to expect. Plus, I'm always interested in seeing horror in the comics format to see how suspense can be captured in the medium. Written and illustrated by Australian Queenie Chan, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was to read this. Once again, I must nerd-out a bit and blog about this.

Very much in the same vein as the old "Fear Street" series by R.L. Stine, "The Dreaming" follows two twin sisters as they try to adjust to their new lives in a creepy old boarding school in the middle of the bush. The eeriness that Chan creates is done very thoughtfully using pacing and camera angles, and the mystery around the school's sordid past is slowly revealed at a very confident yet comfortable pace. You can tell the author was 100% into her world as she wrote and drew this, and the period clothing and architecture feels well-researched and lovingly rendered (as you can see by the above image from her website).

Reading this book gives me the same feeling I used to get reading Point books and Christopher Pike's series back in middle school. So, if you're a fan of those stories you'd definitely love "The Dreaming". Read the three-chapter preview at mangaonline and judge for yourself. =)

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