What does trauma look like? Is it something bestial that comes out with teeth gnashing and blood dribbling down its fur at the right provocation? Is it some Important Man that has done irreparable harm who will never face the consequences he should? Or is trauma the result of those things? The people who are left behind after the impact that still need to walk through life despite everything and keep on living? Those are the people that Paul Cornell, Sally Cantirino, Dearbhla Kelly, and Andworld Design look at in I Walk With Monsters. 

While I had touched on the first issue of the series some time ago, the full series finally made its way into my hands. From that first issue, this is a story that spreads. While we had centered on Jacey, David, and the things that have been haunting them, we get these flashes of the past that leak into the present—sometimes within a single page—that break down everything they had been through to that point. And it’s from there that we learn about The Important Man, that he’s so close, and that Jacey can finally discover what had happened to her brother when they were young. And it’s also where David, and his bestial form, can do a little more than kill the serial killers the duo have been hunting since Jacey ran away from home. Even though the pair have gone through years of violence and trauma together, they can finally do what Jacey has been planning for years. 

I Walk With Monsters showcases something from the oft-underrated Cornell that isn’t often utilized in comics and that’s this unclear delineation between the past and the present. Cantirino and Kelly really help to drive home this almost liquid timeline that the comic runs on. While there is a mostly linear narrative, there are moments of back-and-forth with the past that mirror the fallibility of memory after something traumatic. Panel to panel we can see the story progress, but sometimes the past interrupts for a couple panels, giving us an unsteady feeling as the narrative continues. And it’s those quick flashes of the past where we get so much of our characterization that wouldn’t be possible in a linear story. Those quick panels punctuate a moment and provide more than any flashback issue could as their integration keeps everything present in our minds. 

Cornell, Cantirino, Kelly, and Andworld give us monsters and consequences in equal measure. As Jacey and David are changed by the traumas inflicted on them—and the ones they’ve inflicted on others—we see their world change around them. Even after everything—the killings, the attempted murder, the transformations—we still come out the other side with a happier ending than we would expect. While so much of the story points itself toward sacrifice to achieve what they want, it isn’t until they’re at that precipice that they finally turn back toward one another. 

Get excited. Get together.

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Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.