Storm King has a rich and storied history of releasing unique and fun horror and sci-fi comics and that tradition continues in a big way in their new graphic novel; Night Terrors: User Down.
The story centers around Dana, a psychic who sometimes works with law enforcement by helping them to discover or find the bodies of the deceased. While she’s walking her dog a storm pushes them further into the forest and when Dana gets knocked into a rushing river, everything changes for her. Dana is sucked into a hole and finds herself deep underground, face to face with Poe’s fabled House of User.
Broken into two pieces (like the Titanic it is stated by more than one character) Dana finds it hard to believe what she is looking at. The house appears to be stuck in time and from all appearances, extremely haunted. Dana is fairly quickly rescued but immediately recruited to lead an expedition back to the house to explore and try to find out just what the heck is going on there by Bernice, a government agent.
Going back is a tall order for Dana but she agrees and quickly the team finds out that the house is haunted not only by ghosts but by time itself. Things are constantly changing, sometimes in horrifying ways, like something you would see in a Silent Hill video game. It’s very cool.
The architects of madness
Putting the pen to the paper was Jason Henderson. His writing really shines in several ways in Usher Down, the one that resonated the most for me was his ability to layer the mystery. Nothing is quite as it seems upon first glance and it is very clear that when he said he took inspiration from; The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting, and Rose Red, he meant it. It bleeds through in the best ways. Henderson never pulls down his sunglasses, sitting at the poker table and pushing his chips all in when he’s ready. His use of a strong female lead was refreshing in a genre the can sometimes lack such representation. My only question is, what does he have cooking next?
The art was quite masterfully done by Greg Scott who managed to put together a consistent look for the book that was somehow both realistic and stylized. It really pops off the page and forces you to look for the tiny details. Breathing life into his work was the colorist, in this case, Felipe Sobreiro who chose a pallet that was just muted enough that when he really wanted to draw your eye he would add a brighter splash to make sure nothing was missed. I loved the colors in this. Of course no story could be told without the words and the lettering here by Ed Dukeshire. Always easy to read, he gave each character their own style so that even if there weren’t dialogue bubbles, we would know who was speaking. Extremely well done, this team needs to work together, so many more times.
Final thoughts
Usher Down surprised me, it shouldn’t have because Storm King continues to impress with each and every release. It just solidified Storm King as the undisputed champion of horror publishing. The story was a quick read because it forced me to keep going, much like the characters, I was afraid to stop. I wouldn’t know what would happen if I did and I needed to know. The writing and the art are perfectly married in this book and there isn’t a single aspect that makes it anything but a pleasurable experience.
Also, selfishly for me, there aren’t many horror stories that are set in Virginia and as a Virginia boy myself it was quite fun to be reading something that took place in my home state. It made everything somehow that much more familiar and really raised the stakes.
Usher Down was just another perfect example of what is possible in the graphic novel medium, you don’t need to spend millions of dollars on an effect heavy movie when reading (in this house at least) is still very popular, cheaper, and sometimes for my money, more fun. Usher Down was like taking a guided tour through Henderson, Scott, Sobreiro, and Dukeshire’s collective nightmares and it was a dreamscape that I would be happy to revisit. You need to pick up a copy of this book.
Wonderfully Weird & Horrifying 