Vertigo’s collapse left a hole in the comics landscape — the middle-ground between simpler adventure or superhero comics and more daring, avant-garde entertainment. There have been plenty of comics since that tried to fit that niche, including an imprint by Vertigo’s editor, Karen Berger herself. But Vertigo’s longest running series, Hellblazer, was hit especially hard by the collapse. Attempts to revive the book since have faced all sorts of speedbumps, ranging from DC trying to fit the series into their wider universe to premature cancellations. Boom! Studios’ Damn Them All #9 sees writer Si Spurrier, one of the minds behind a particularly well loved run on Hellblazer, continue in the spirit of that Vertigo classic. Si Spurrier is joined by artist Charlie Adlard, colorists Sofie Dodgson and Daniel Silva De Carvalho, and letterer Jim Campbell for a comic that keeps up that grungy, British look at the occult — while still managing to find its own voice.
About Damn Them All #9:
72 devils of the Ars Goetia have been stripped from their unearthly realm and trapped in our reality. Possession of a magic coin is now all it takes for someone to summon one of these powerful demons to do their bidding. Which means plenty of small-time gangsters have jumped on the opportunity to escalate their petty turf wars to a supernatural level. Gang enforcer/shaman/priest Ellie Hawthorne is caught in the middle and unwilling to trust the gang boss she works for with with so much power. Not to mention her suspicions that her magic-dabbling uncle Alfie had a hand in creating the new status quo. So she makes it her personal mission to send all the demons back where they came from.
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Issue 9 tests that resolve when an old flame of hers tries to show how a demon could be used to connect people spiritually, resolving conflicts and bringing about a new kind of peace. Though he’s less willing to talk about the costs. Meanwhile, Ellie’s friend, Dora, is trying to cope with the aftereffects of being mentally invaded by angels. That desperation leads her to ask advice from a demon known for being particularly psychotic.
Writing
Damn Them All continues to slowly sketch the contours of its world. This issue in particular delves into the comic’s take on possession and how a demon bound to serve can try and find his own form of freedom. It’s a refreshingly specific take on the occult, the kind only offered by writers deeply familiar with the real-life stories and legends. Damn Them All is a book unafraid to get deep into the weeds. Sometimes it even dedicates entire pages to fictional journal entries by Ellie’s uncle, explaining the supernatural forces at play.
That means a prose-heavy approach that has become a bit less common in genre comics. Which is especially helpful for a book that focuses so heavily on creatures that are foreign to our reality. A demon describes two humans appearing to him through “The hiss of their numbers. Interfering waveforms, resolving to resonance.” Dora “Recalls the agony of the angels’ touch only distantly. Like somebody else’s photos, fading on a sunlit wall.” Show, don’t tell may be a common maxim, but one that can only go so far dealing with big, fantastical ideas. And in this case, there’s a real texture in the telling. Demons are simultaneously cold, near-mathematical concepts — Ellie’s uncle compares them to genes — and childlike outcasts, abandoned by their creator and reality itself. As the comic’s reality has continued to unfold, the core story has only become more rewarding. This is definitely a series that demands to be reread.
Art
Charlie Adlard sticks to a more grounded, understated approach with his character art. Ellie is not a character prone to dramatic poses. The buildings the story takes place in aren’t terribly exciting. A caption even describes the apartment this issue revolves around as “brutalist,” often shown painted with dull, flat colors and sparse, functional furniture, which helps create contrast when the demons from hell show up. The demons themselves are more blurry shapes than physical presences, reality itself fragmenting and shattering around them. This issue in particular gets to show the world from a more demonic perspective, reality itself as a web of connections, covering a magician so he appears like a cross-contour drawing.
Coloring
Sofie Dodgson and Daniel Silva De Carvalho’s coloring work uses flat planes of color with rough brush-stroke edges to help give each page depth. There’s a washed-out, understated quality to the colors chosen during the real-world segments. Which means their work especially shows during the comic’s moments of demonic presence. Unstable psychopath Andras is colored like an off-register print, shades of bright red, blues, and yellow making him almost appear to vibrate off the page. While the connective powers of King Beleth fill the page with calming blues and golds. Its a world of wild contrasts, visible through just the color palette.
Lettering
Jim Campbell’s lettering does a good job of communicating the ebb and flow of conversation. Quieter asides are drawn in grey, smaller letters, which combine with both normal and bolded letters to give characters different volumes they bounce between as they talk. Even the demons, in their scratchy, more chaotic lettering, have a rise and fall to the way they speak. The all-caps lettering also switches to lowercase when handling speech stutters like “ah” or “eh.” It helps the conversation feel more natural, which is especially important in a book that revolves around so much speaking.
VERDICT
Damn Them All #9 continues the slow burn in a series that has only managed to get more interesting over time. It’s worth reading for those interested in the Hellblazer tradition of rat bastards solving occult mysteries. The book’s out now from Boom! Studios so check it out!
