Review – Grimm Fairy Tales Presents Sleepy Hollow #2

Grimm Fairy Tales Presents Sleepy Hollow Story By Dan Wickline Art by Alberto Cortes and Erick Arciniega Letters by Jim Campbell Covers by Marat Mychaels & Ivan Nunes and Ale Garza & Linda Luksic Sejic Publisher Zenescope Entertainment Released: 11/28/12 Verdict: This issue is a bit of a decline from the first, but the ending is strong enough that faith should still be had for a strong finish.

I was really excited for Grimm Fairy Tales Presents Sleepy Hollow, and the first issue was a good opening chapter. It set up the characters, and showed us what the catalyst for the story was probably going to be. Unfortunately this second issue just didn’t deliver the way I wanted it to. The whole ‘present’ part of the issue was the characters dealing with what they’d done in the previous issue. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but this is only a four issue mini-series, so it may be detrimental to the flow of the story. For that we’ll have to wait till all four issues have been released and see how it goes. I’ve still got high hopes for Sleep Hollow, it ended on a pretty good note and issues three and four have a really good chance of being awesome.

The highlight of issue two, was the cameo by Grimm Fairy Tales vet, Sela Mathers. In a very classic Grimm Fairy Tales fashion she shows up as a professor at the university and tells the real story of the Headless Horseman. That’s where the storytelling really held it’s on this issue, for all the problems I had with the present part of the story, the history lesson was a lot of fun and really interesting. It brought you back to the beginning of the first issue, and shows you how those circumstance came to be.

It might just be that I enjoy history, and historical setting, but I would have been alright with a full issue of just that. I feel like there was more to that story, then to the current day stuff right now. That’s not to say I want it to stay in the past, like I said, this story still has promise and the final page shows exactly how much it has. And really in the long run, it’s probably for the best to have a slow issue that delves a little more into the side characters that we don’t’ know much about. The first issue was all about Craig, others were introduced but not really developed. This was their chance, and while I wasn’t enthralled by it, better to get it out of the way so the story can move forward.

Dan Wickline has done a lot of books that are in the horror comic genre, along with several other Zenescope books. That means, he’s one of the better qualified people to be doing a story about the legends of Sleepy Hollow. You’ve probably already gathered that I’m a fan of his interpretation of the history behind the Headless Horseman, so I’m not going to get into that. But even the parts of the story I wasn’t really into he did a solid job of getting the feel of a bunch of people in a tragic situation. This was helped by some solid art by Alberto Cortes and Erick Arciniega. This is the second team to work on Sleepy Hollow, and they did a great job of keeping things consistent. Every artist and colorist has a their own style, so it’s always nice when you have a mini-series that the art styles are close enough that the book still feels like the same book.

You’ve probably gathered that I’m a little torn over this book, parts of it were really enjoyable, other parts I felt were a little longer than they needed to be. We’re also left with a lot of unanswered questions between the first two issues. We found out what the letter was that Craig found, but we don’t know what Katie was actually going to be doing. We also haven’t found out what that voice was talking to Craig, hopefully both of those get brought up more in the next issue.

I really think this book still has enough going for it, that even with a lull for a second issue, that it’s going to finish strong. And at only four issues, it’s not a huge investment of time or money to see how it plays out, Zenescope is also pretty fast with the trade releases, so that’s also a viable solution too. I’d say if you’re not sure about the first issue, hold out and pick up the trade in a few months, otherwise pick this up and wait for things to pick up in the penultimate issue of Sleepy Hollow.

Chris talks a bunch on PodQuest each week. He's also been known to write about stuff from time to time. You can Email Chris or follow Chris on Twitter @Just_Cobb or Facebook

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