Don’t you just hate it when a trip to Italy gets interrupted by a haunted house that may be full of demons? Okay, maybe this isn’t a universal problem, but it’s what Jana is dealing with in the miniseries “Case of the Bleeding Wall” from father/daughter writing duo Joe R. Lansdale and Kasey Landsdale, with art from Daniele Serra and Tom Napolitano. The story introduces us to Jana, a young woman who has recently had a terrifying experience she can’t explain and has gone to famous supernatural (or supernormal, as she calls it) expert, Dana Roberts, to find answers. Dana, however, is in need of a new assistant, and whisks Jana off to Italy to investigate an ex’s house.
Over the course of four issues, we follow the two women as they get to know one another and prepare to keep the undead at bay. Jana quickly proves herself to be a capable assistant, or at least always has a wry comment to deliver in the face of danger. The snappy dialogue from most of the characters is a real highlight and firmly places this story in the realm of dark comedy. The blasé nature Dana projects combined with Jana always placing her next meal as a higher priority than her own safety or training creates a lovable duo from the get-go, which is necessary for a short series like this. As soon as one of them breaks the tension with a one-liner, the story goes right back to building it up again, creating a genre mashup that plays with dark and light in equal measure.
Despite all the fun dialogue, there is still a strong sense of dread in the story, and that is made most present through the art. The four covers are fantastic, using watercolor to create a gothic landscape of misty grays and browns, with a shot of brighter color in the center to guide your eyes to the focus of the image. The interiors have sharper lines, and there is a great command of shadow and silhouette throughout. The colors remain mostly muted until the true horrors are revealed in all their glory. And I must mention the eyes. There is a hollowness to the eyes of every character, innocent or guilty, a suggestion that once you have been exposed to the other worldly terrors these people have, it can never leave you.
I sped through reading this and then went back a second time to just browse through the art. This feels like just the beginning of many cases Dana and Jana could go on, and it actually is. The story of the Bleeding Wall comes from a series of short stories from the Landsdales called Terror is Our Business: Dana Roberts’ Casebook of Horrors. I can only hope that further cases will be adapted into comic form, as this was horrific and hilarious all at once.