Dark Horse Comics’ Helen of Wyndhorn #1 is complex and understated all at once. The all-star creative team behind Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow — writer Tom King, artist Bilquis Evely, colorist Matheus Lopes, and letterer Clayton Cowles — are back with another stunning labor of love. Helen of Wyndhorn is about many, many things. But, it seems, it’s most of all about how stories get told.
About Helen of Wyndhorn #1 (from Dark Horse):
Following the tragic death of her late father C.K. Cole, the esteemed pulp writer and creator of the popular warrior character Othan; Helen Cole is called back to her Grandfather’s enormous and illustrious estate: Wyndhorn House.
Scarred by Cole’s untimely passing and lost in a new, strange world, Helen wreaks drunken havoc upon her arrival; however, her chaotic ways begin to soften as she discovers a lifetime of secrets hiding within the myriad rooms and hallways of the expansive manor. For outside its walls, within the woods, dwell the legendary adventures that once were locked away within her father’s stories.
Writing
From page one, King’s playful tone in this series is obvious. Despite the premise of the story revolving around Helen losing her father, the first words we see are simply “I didn’t know him.” These are the words of Ms. Appleton. She was Helen’s caretaker at Wyndhorn, and now, in her ripe old age, she’s being interviewed about her connections to the daughter of the famous pulp writer, C.K. Cole. But she never met him, and she’s proud to admit that she never has — nor ever plans to — read his work. “It’s all trash, isn’t it?” she tuts.
And so, it’s through Ms. Appleton’s voice that we hear about Helen and Wyndhorn. She’s a character who would shiver to think that her own words would be printed in something so lowly as a comic book. But King chooses her voice for a reason. Her discomfort with the subject matter of her own story — the teenage Helen’s binge drinking and chain smoking for instance — leads her to be scant on the details. She’s verbose, but she’s also evasive in how she relays what she witnessed, perhaps worried that she should have done more. When she speaks to a barkeep, trying to track down her ward at the very start of our tale, she says “It has been over five decades, and still I hesitate to admit where he sent me next.” She goes on cryptically, painting an even more vivid picture through what she’s not saying, describing the prison cell where she finds the poor girl passed out. As a narrator, she not only lends humor and subtlety to these pages, but she stands in stark contrast to our raucous titular character.
Art
Similarly to King, Evely plays against every moment. Helen’s addictions, in reality, are quite depressing. She’s a sixteen year old girl who is dependent on booze and cigarettes. But instead of highlighting what we already know, Evely depicts Helen’s addictions in whimsical ways. When she knocks back a drink, she almost seems to be doing a dance. The smoke of her cigarettes sweep across her, joining in the movement. Rather than judging Helen for her vices, Evely gives us a window into why she depends on these things. As dysfunctional as it might be, she simply comes alive when she has a drink in her hand. These are the things she can count on as entertaining distractions from not ever really fitting in.
When Helen is first shown around the Wyndhorn House, she is pictured across two pages, small against the backdrop of the massive rooms in the mansion. She’s standing in the exact same rigid stance in each panel, but her placement in each panel changes. Evely makes us feel like Helen is totally lost, being led around a world that’s not her own. It’s when she’s given a tour of the wine cellar that we first see her begin to move again. Her arms open a little, and soon she’s relaxed and at home, with wine running down her satisfied face.
Coloring
The world of Helen of Wyndhorn is bright, vibrant, and full of life. Even the dirty prison cell where Ms. Appleton first finds Helen has a brilliant yellow light cast across it. When we see them both later, they’re aboard a train that’s lumbering across a nighttime landscape. The panel is shown in a blue that almost seems to glow. Even Wyndhorn itself is perched atop rolling green hills. Everything, for the first few pages, almost feels magical in its coloration. But the inside of the Wyndhorn mansion is a different story. Where once there were vivid hues of yellow, blue, and green, there is now nothing but dull earthy tones. Every panel is covered in shades of brown and grey. The ornate decorations are somehow rendered to seem boring and unimpressive.
It seems that, despite Ms. Appleton being the one who is narrating this particular story, Lopes is actually showing it to us through Helen’s eyes. She sparkles in the outdoors. She’s more in her own skin when she’s in a cramped prison cell than when she’s in a gargantuan house. That is, until she sees the wine cellar. For the first time on her tour of Wyndhorn, Lopes brings bright coloring back into the page. The panels of Helen slurping down a whole bottle of red wine are depicted in a familiar warm yellow. She acts like she’s unaffected by her environments. Lopes assures us that that is not the case.
Lettering
Thanks to Cowles, the sentiments of our narrator towards pulpy “trash” fiction are never forgotten. Her captions show up, looking like they’ve been ripped out of her diary. The font looks like neat handwriting and the caption boxes have uneven edges to them. I’m sure Ms. Appleton would be more inclined to see this story published in a memoir, rather than showing up in the pages of a comic book. But try as she might, she certainly lives in the kind of world that still has a tendency towards moments of flashy action. Whether it’s his haphazard looking fonts that present the sounds of shattering glass, or the sounds of people’s screams that push beyond the borders of their word balloons, Cowles deals as expertly in excitement as he does in subtlety.
Verdict
Dark Horse’s Helen of Wyndhorn is about more than worlds colliding. It’s about more than a young girl who is trying to run from trauma — in the most entertaining ways she can muster. Helen of Wyndhorn is about how stories get told. This creative team proves they know the art of storytelling intimately. What they’re doing here is nothing short of beautiful. Helen of Wyndhorn #1 is out now from Dark Horse Comics at a comic shop near you!
