Draw You In Volume 1: Collector’s Item
Jasper Bark
Crystal Lake Publishing (June 7, 2024)
Reviewed by Elaine Pascale
Some experience glitches in the matrix. Draw You In is that glitch magnified a thousand times. The main character, Linda Corrigan, comes to realize that a person she worked with no longer exists. This is not to say that person died, instead they were wiped off the map. No one else remembers him and there is no record of his life. His own mother claims she never had a child.
Linda is determined to prove that she is not crazy and delves into an investigation regarding her lost colleague. Linda is a comics creator and her enquiry leads to the discovery of multiple disappearances. Moreover, each and every disappearance is associated with extreme horror comic artist R. L. Carver. Conspiracy theorists rejoice, as there is a connection between horror comics, the shadow realm, and the United States Government!
Draw You In is a love letter to comics; the history of comics is detailed in a careful and tender way. The book deftly traces the relationship between creativity and mental cleansing, between art and the act of purging. Linda’s feelings of marginalization both in terms of her genre and her gender are relatable and the other characters in the story are nicely fleshed out. My only complaint is that with such compelling descriptions of R. L. Carver’s illustrations, I desperately wanted to see the panels!
Draw You In is the first book in a trilogy (the 2nd and 3rd volumes will be released on June 21st and July 5th, so you do not have to wait long to find out what happens) and reading it is a unique experience. For those unfamiliar with the tradition of comics in the horror genre, Draw You In provides a chronology interspersed with an engaging story. For comic fans, Draw You In is justification for the active and devoted community.
