Echoes HC [Hardcover]

Joshua Hale Fialkov (Author), Rahsan Ekedal (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2011

From acclaimed author Joshua Hale Fialkov (Tumor, Pilot Season: Alibi) and rising artist Rahsan Ekedal (Creepy) a disturbing story of murder and mystery wrapped in questions of sanity. Minotaur Press premieres with a story of madness, family and death. Brian Cohn was learning to deal with the schizophrenia inherited from his father. Supportive wife, new baby on the way, drugs to control the voices. But, when on his father's deathbed he learns that he also inherited the trophies of his father's career as a serial killer, will his madness send him further down into the crawlspace of his father's mind?

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Image Comics (September 6, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1607062151
• ISBN-13: 978-1607062158
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #780,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joshua Hale Fialkov is the Harvey, Eisner, and Emmy award nominated creator of graphic novels, video games, prose, and the occasional screenplay. Best known for his cult hit series I, VAMPIRE for DC Comics, as well as the Eisner Award nominated TUMOR and Harvey Award nominated ECHOES.

Joshua is the upcoming writer of ULTIMATE COMICS: THE ULTIMATES for Marvel.

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, author Christina Rice, their daughter, and their cat, Smokey.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eerily Excellent September 8, 2011

By Dustin Drury

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Echoes is by far the best series I've read in 2011. It scares you in a way that is grounded in reality and emotion. The story surprises and delights you with the perfect amount suspense. If there was a comic book to compliment a brilliant TV show like Breaking Bad Echoes would be it. AMC should cancel the Killing and pick up Echoes as a series, I'm sure Brian could pull it off and it would fit in so well next to it's comic book breathen The Walking Dead.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly twisted horror story. October 25, 2011

By Juan Vargas

Format:Hardcover

Just for the fact that the writer of this comic managed to create an original twist to he's story warrants praise for this book. Never mind that the black and white art is gorgeous and the pacing is phenomenal. This little known book delivers.

5.0 out of 5 stars Echoes March 4, 2013

By the fuj

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I normally don't go for indy comics but on a referral, i picked this up and was delighted from beginning to end.

5/5

3.0 out of 5 stars Is that really how it ends? January 25, 2013

By A. Huerta

Format:Hardcover

That was the first thing that came to my mind after I finished this book. I went to the comic book store and asked the clerk that had recommended me this title, if this was a first part of something bigger. I was shocked with the answer when the clerk said, "I know right?" And later added, NO, unfortunately, that is it.

I guess what Im trying to say is, the book is great, I loved the story, great writing and awesome art... But the ending... oh God the ending. I honestly thought that the writer had ran out of money or something... Anyways, I will definitely look for the writer's next book.

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most disturbing reads in comics EVER. July 23, 2012

By James Donnelly VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Before he started the reboot of I, VAMPIRE for DC's New 52, I had never even heard of Joshua Hale Fialkov. That book has been one of the consistently great titles of the New 52 rollout defying all expectations, and his other recent project at Image Comics, the woefully underrated and under-read THE LAST OF THE GREATS, came out around the same time and suddenly all of the works of Fialkov were on my radar. I dug around my local comic shop for his Top Cow "Pilot" issues, like the terrific ALIBI and his most recent one, THE TEST. I then got the amazingly suspenseful work ELK'S RUN, and am currently waiting on his book TUMOR in the mail. But just recently, I got ECHOES, and with all of the great work that I've read by Fialkov since August of 2011, ECHOES may very well be his best work to date and one of the most disturbing comics I've ever read.

The story begins with Brian Cohn, a seemingly ordinary man with a loving wife and a baby on the way. As the book opens, we are met with a disjointed narrative from Cohn himself seemingly in three different places: The future, the present, and the past. Where the book really kicks off the story, though is Brian visiting his father in the hospital. His father, dying of Alzheimer's, is also a schizophrenic, a trait he has sadly passed down to his son. Brian manages his schizophrenia with meds and a friendly psychiatrist and he's able to be there for his father as he begins to shuffle off his mortal coil. As his father dies, though, he has time for something of a deathbed confession of a terrible but mysterious secret that leads Brian to investigate a mostly abandoned house. As Brian investigates, he starts to see things in the dark due to his schizophrenia.... He's about to take one of his meds, but then he starts toward the crawlspace of the house where his father told him to look. He initially finds a big stack of 70's porno magazines, and busts out laughing thinking that's the big "horrifying" secret. While laughing, he lays back only to find that he's lying amongst the bones of children; specifically little girls. He finds small dolls made from the skin, hair and bones of these little girls of which there are several.

Brian becomes terribly afraid, not only at the discovery of what his father has done, but also begins to wonder if the schizophrenia wasn't the only sickness his father passed down to him. This fear is brought into a whole new light when a little girl in Brian's neighborhood goes missing. It becomes not only a mystery to the reader, but a mystery to Brian's own mind. He has no recollection of doing something like this, but his mind is telling him otherwise. His visual and auditory hallucinations become more vivid and more utterly terrifying and by the time Brian may have solved the mystery of the girl's disappearance, it may be too late for him.

What struck me about this book so hard was how amazingly intense of a read it is. The book rarely ever lets up and gives you a break from the terror that Brian is experiencing. The whole book takes place in a very short period of time, and it doesn't bother with incidentals because everything that we're experiencing is from Brian's perspective. What's even greater about this book is how real this experience feels. Our thoughs, more often than not, are our own worst enemies. Humans constantly wonder about "what if" and "could have"; it's part of our nature. The terror that Brian feels is that he feels those things more intensely than most others because of his illness. Those questions and scenarios dominate his mind until they begin to intrude on his life in the most horrific way possible. This is displayed through the visceral and terrifying art of Rahsan Ekedal, who also worked with Fialkov more recently on THE TEST.

This hardcover is digest-size, but don't let that take any of the value of reading this book. I read the entire run of Greg Rucka's QUEEN AND COUNTRY in digest form and all of Darwyn Cooke's PARKER books are in digest size as well, and that does nothing to diminish the quality of any of these publications.

Fialkov has in less than a year become one of my favorite comic creators of all time and it's hard to imagine that will end any time soon, especially if the quality of his work is anything like the quality found in ECHOES. Read more ›

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Graphic Novel March 16, 2012

By J. Iblings

Format:Hardcover

I was never really a comic book guy, but I read Echoes on a lark and was hooked from the first issue. This is not super hero comics, this is dark and gritty, like a Hitchcock, Lynch, or Cronenberg film. Well written, great drawing, this is the book that opened up the power of the graphic novel for me. I only wish they'd do a second arc of the series, because I want back into that world.

4.0 out of 5 stars A dark and devious book that will hook you from the start. October 11, 2011

By ashertopia TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

His father's dying words - the first clearly spoken in some time thanks to Alzheimer's - lead Brian to an abandoned house and underneath it to a basement filled with human bones and a box that will change his life forever.

The box Brian finds holds tiny dolls made up of the shaved bone and skin of young girls who have been killed by an as yet undiscovered serial killer. The revelation of the box and his father's dying words directing him to find the box and turn it in to the authorities pushes Brian down a rabbit hole of doubt, worry and dementia himself - without his medication every two hours, Brian suffers from a disorder which causes hallucinations. Brian's dementia only serves to confuse and disorient the reader more and more as we follow him along from the death of his father to the discovery of the box.

The dark, moody all black and white artwork by Rahsan Ekedal serves to add depth and creepiness to the book. Not that the story needs it. Echoes is a dark and devious book that will hook you from the start. Highly recommended for fans of horror, suspense and graphic novel enthusiasts.

This book was provided by the publisher as a review copy.

4.0 out of 5 stars A truly harrowing experience! August 30, 2011

By Palle Schmidt

Format:Hardcover

Not often do you come across a comic book that scares your pants off. Fialkov and Ekedals "Echoes" sneaks up on you and goes "boo!" more than once. And while it may go for the cinematic storytelling, this graphic novel is not one to leave the audience with a sense of closure, rather an unnerving sense of dread, that stays long after you put the book down. Must re-read soon!