Comic Review: SUNFLOWER

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While visiting a competing pop culture news website that shall go unnamed, I was greeted with one of those annoying autoplay video ads. My reflexes kicked in and I clicked it closed but in the half second or so before that happened, I got a glimpse of a scene I was actually surprisingly intrigued by; a woman sitting at a table in a holding cell, another woman across from her, and some kind of creepy Anubis-like figure looming over both of them. I saw the name “SUNFLOWER” so I did some research and discovered that the writer of well received crime drama film BLACK MASS was doing a comic book. A little more digging and I got some contact info. A few e-mails later and I had a PDF of issue #1 in my hands. I had little understanding of what I was getting myself into before I opened that PDF, other than some kind of cult horror theme. Thanks to Stephen at 451 for letting me bring you my take on this new series from a new publisher.

SUNFLOWER writer Mark Mallouk and his partner in crime Andi Ewington have no qualms about deeply sinking their comic into the mire of rural noir. The opening scene introduces the long bereaved CJ in the act of severing dead branches from trees lining her idyllic cottage. Her mother has come to provide some comfort to an obviously deeply damaged woman. She’s ten years separated from her husband and child. The impression given by her interactions with her mother is that of a tightly bottled pressure; without her mother’s reassuring presence, it’s possible she might not have survived their traumatic deaths. Naturally, it’s all interrupted by a missive hinting at the possibility that her daughter is still alive.

That letter is the catalyst of an explosion of simmering rage and paranoia that launches CJ across the summer-drenched valleys of the Inland Empire, landing in the small town of Blythe where her search into the postcard leads her. She links the postcard to a murder suspect cleared of charges in the case and her poking around his name summons a quiet, menacing parade of strangers warning her away from further investigation. The quiet moments of CJ’s interminable journey are haunting; curled up in a ball on a motel bed, slipping sullenly into a small diner, etc. There’s even a nice moment that subtly establishes the time period (that of bulky CRT tubes and accessing the Internet at a library) while hinting at a weird angle to the story; aforementioned murder suspect she’s chasing is a powerful figure associated with a cult that worships Anubis, possibly. It’s all very TRUE DETECTIVE but by narrowing focus to the one one person, the tale has a much sadder, emotional heft. No questions are answered in the first issue, but thankfully what action conspires is intriguing enough to merit further reading, thanks to writer Andi Ewington’s tight plotting and script.

Artist Lee Carter has the kind of realistic, photo-like style that fits the story like a glove, his minimalist but fully formed images allowing the story to pull the reader along without too much distraction, yet at the same time, there’s subtle emotional heft to his POVs. Everything about SUNFLOWER feels like a well made TV show but what Carter does is prove that comics have more flexibility and intensity than a TV show can usually pull off. For example, the panel when CJ realizes what the postcard implies about her daughter’s fate, CJ is alone in a page-wide panel, her eyes hidden beneath the shadow of her baseball cap, staring down in shock, the mailbox intruding from the corner. It’s the bare, black lettering of the “GASP!!” sound that sharpens the emotional texture but the simple image hits hard.

In the same way, the shared responsibility of colors, Lee Carter and Eugenio Perez Jr, is a very wise decision. There’s no shortcuts taken in the colors. Every page has a new dominant hue that compliments the mood of what’s happening but those hues are restrained enough to remain in the background, supporting but not overwhelming, and the important elements are given realistic coloring with plenty of accurate shading and texture. The letterer is unnamed and more than likely it’s Ewington or Carter and it’s obvious that the work is a bit rushed; the lettering is standard stuff, nothing distinctive, but it’s placed and timed well enough that it doesn’t feel neglectful, just simple.

There’s nothing complicated about SUNFLOWER; it’s taut, effective and while it also isn’t doing anything new, it holds promise, much like the pilot episode of a new season of TRUE DETECTIVE or, perhaps more accurately, TOP OF THE LAKE. Is it $4 worth of mysterious goodness? Based off what’s hinted at here and the reputation of main plotter Mark Mallouk, I’m willing to bet we’re in for a wild, weird ride and you’re going to want to be there for the rest of CJ’s story.

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