Proctor Valley Road #3

Proctor Valley Road #3

BOOM! Studios 2021

Written by Grant Morrison & Alex Child

Illustrated by Naomi Franquiz

Coloured by Tamra Bonvillain

Lettered by Jim Campbell

The girls are supposed to stay out of trouble... and away from the haunted stretch of Proctor Valley Road. But a stolen police car leads to the return of the Proctor Valley Bull and more danger than anyone could imagine…

* As the town -- and even their families -- closes in on the girls, August makes a choice to visit that haunted road one last time.

* And even if she survives, an even greater threat may have its eyes on these four friends...

This really is a sensational book and while I applaud the girls courage they keep being told the same thing over and over again by the adults in this series. I hope they at least listen and try to be smart about things instead of impulsive, though let’s be honest impulse seems to keep them alive for now. I love that this Landlady keeps messing with them for her own reasons that we haven’t a clue about yet and she’s setting them up to take a fall in some sort of spectacular fashion.

I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. I love that the more we learn the more we need to learn because it feels like we’re peeling an onion and each layers hides another. The character development gets more and more intense as the girls learn more and how we see the dialogue, character interactions and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter. The pacing is superb and as it takes through the pages revealing the twists & turns along the way we’re sucked into this like we’re trapped in a waterspout instead of the water park.

I love the way we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and new ones emerge, I mean August’s mom, yeah that was a good one. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved beautifully. The entire flow is simply stunning and it feels like the sequence of events is the natural progression and that’s great to see.

The all-ages interiors here are phenomenal in how they are totally misleading considering the nature of the story. The linework is beautifully rendered and how the varying weights are utilised to create the details work is sensational. I adore how each of them has their own unique look that completely suits their personality and that’s intentional which is so incredibly smart to do so that they are unique people and not generic teenage girls. The composition within the panels and how we see backgrounds really capture the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a sensational eye for storytelling. The colour is fabulous and how the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is incredibly well rendered.

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This is an incredible book and it’s got this wonderful depth and complexity to the storytelling that engages the reader and ignites the creativity and imagination in some truly wondrous ways. The misfits or outcasts doing what they can to see a concert this badly reminds me of my high school days when we’d go on a school night and not tell the folks instead let them think i’m at work. So relatable to and so much fun to read.