The dangers of a long journey home from a distant land can cast a haze on the memories of the adventure as a whole, unless the traveller returns with some bauble or token to commemorate the experience. That is why I drove home from Emerald City Comic Con – the gruelling two hours between Seattle and Vancouver just straight up riven with gentle rain and outlet stores – with three issues of Curse clutched to my chest. It was important… that I remember.
This isn’t a review, because I’m bad at those. This is me, a werewolf fan, asserting to you, a fellow werewolf fan, that Curse is excellent, and worth your time. Its four creators have made something like a tender paternal heart, then wrapped it in chains and stuffed it with wiry grey fur, blood-stained snow and the specific sadness that comes when you were real good at football but then someone stepped on your leg. Michael Moreci and Tim Daniel are bad men for thinking up a story where the character with the sunniest outlook is a kid with terminal cancer, and Riley Rossmo and Colin Lorimer are suspiciously adept at drawing human entrails.
The fourth and final issue comes out this Wednesday the 16th, and you can see an exclusive preview on Bloody Disgusting, but I recommend that you read the first three issues before you go there. There are some Bad Decisions happening in the preview pages, and you’re better off understanding the characters before you take sides.
It is true that I collected some other artifacts while at ECCC: an advance DVD of the excellent comics documentary Stripped, a physical copy of the splendid werewolf comic anthology Wolfen Jump, a smile and chat from Anathema creator Rachel Deering, and a persistent cold that my wife and I received from inhaling the coughs of tens of thousands of people. But for me, Curse stands out as the jewel for two reasons: 1) I wanted to read it because everyone says it’s really good, and 2) it turns out everyone’s right, it’s really good. You should check it out.