Tom King, Bilquis Evely, and Matheus Lopes put their own spin on the classic portal fantasy genre in Helen of Wyndhorn #1, and their version is a little less C.S. Lewis and a little more Robert E. Howard. For the most part, the first issue focuses on the characters of Helen and Lilith reading more like historical fiction until the genre elements kick into the back half of the book. However, letterer Clayton Cowles’ scroll-like caption boxes and sword and sorcery fonts add a touch of magic to an old woman being interviewed by a biographer of C.K. Cole, who was Helen’s father. It all adds to one of the underlying themes of the story, which is mythologizing absent father figures as C.K. Cole is dead, and his father, the wealthy, enigmatic Barnabas Cole, is missing for much of the book.
Evely’s art style in Helen of Wyndhorn is a push and pull between, let’s just oversimplify this a bit, American and British fantasy of the early 20th century. Her opening page is pure Weird Tales, and this same pulp inspiration returns toward the end of the book. Then, there’s the middle bit where Helen and her new governess Lilith journey to Wyndhorn, and Lopes goes for sun-beaten sepia tones as they bounce from motel to jail cell to bar rooms until finally returning to something a little more fantastic with Wyndhorn itself. The splash page of Wyndhorn features intricate linework and otherworldly colors from Mat Lopes, and this intricacy continues in the plotting with Helen and Lilith getting a tour of the house that puts Professor Kirke of Chronicles of Narnia fame’s abode to shame. But Helen Cole is no Lucy Pevensie, and she spends most of her time stealing and drinking the butler’s expensive wines.
In sketching out Helen’s character in Helen of Wyndhorn #1, Tom King and Bilquis Evely go for maximum messiness with a little sweetness like when she’s afraid and spends the night with Lilith, or when she is happy to have an actual bed on the train journey to Wyndhorn instead of hiding in the steerage like she and her father used to do. Helen definitely makes a hell of a first impression in her first panel passed out drunk in a jail cell and then immediately going to a bar and having a beer and a shot while chain smoking. Her life is utter chaos compared to prim and proper Lilith, who stays secure in her class and gender roles, even basically admitting to the biographer that reading Cole’s pulp stories would be “improper” for her. The one thing that she actually cares about is her father’s legacy as evidenced in a darkly humorous scene where she berates a monument store owner about his grave’s inscription that apparently there was a lot of speculation and scholarship about in a jab at critics and academics.
Finally, I have to applaud King for departing from his previous comics and making a “boring” middle-aged woman the narrator of Helen of Wyndhorn, which creates a lot of dissonance between the writing and the art. This begins in the aforementioned first page, which seems like this comic is going to be a big Conan-style epic, but it’s an elderly woman talking about her past in a very monotone and boring way to a biographer giving a bare bones description of her relationship with the Coles and omitting the various scandals of their lives. (This kind of redaction creates intrigue for future issues.) This almost humorous understatement hits its height once the fantasy/weird fiction elements kick in, and Lilith gives a bare-bones description of what’s going on in the panel. This monotone narration plus heightened visuals from Evely gives Helen of Wyndhorn a unique tone from issue one as Tom King continues to play with one of comic’s biggest strengths, visual irony, continuing his journey in the footsteps of Alan Moore (Is Helen of Wyndhorn his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but a solo book? Bad takes incoming.)
Helen of Wyndhorn #1 uses the trappings of classic fantasy and historical fiction to begin to tell a wayward daughter/estranged and idealized father story. The “hook” of the series doesn’t hit until towards the end of the book, but Tom King, Bilquis Evely, Matheus Lopes, and Clayton Cowles use these early pages to create a magical setting and a mundane narrator as well as the beauty and danger of portal fiction. Spoiler alert for a 68 year old book, but 95% of the cast of Chronicles of Narnia did die in the final book in the series…
Story: Tom King Art: Bilquis Evely
Colors: Matheus Lopes Letters: Clayton Cowles
Story: 7.8 Art: 9.0 Overall: 8.4 Recommendation: Buy
Dark Horse Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Purchase: TFAW – Zeus Comics – Kindle
