Customer Reviews

Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

i've been a fan of troy nixey's art for years. nobody, but NOBODY draws tentacled and creepy-from-the-deep stuff like him, making him the perfect illustrator for most anything Lovecraftian. don't look to him for pretty things - everything that flows from his pen is going to be somehow warped or twisted, or supremely dark at the very least. pure genius!

this story's not perfect. it had a few "forced" moments, i thought: some shock for shock's sake that didn't really advance the storyline, and some of the humor didn't quite click for me (although, unlike another reviewer, i loved the little fish flopping around and saying "doom!"). plus, the slightly reduced size of this trade collection also reduces the size of the artwork, costing the reader a little in terms of detail.

on the plus side, though, the story is oozing with atmosphere. i could almost smell fish-tainted opium smoke while reading! great details in both narrative and art really flesh out the setting and the characters. and nixey's artwork is top notch.

overall, 85 out of 100, or about 4.5 stars. well worth picking up if you appreciate real atmospheric horror, if you can get beyond the trendy glut of zombies and tennybopper vampire pseudo-smut currently glutting the globe.

First of all, I apologize for how confusing it's going to be having one 5- and one 1-star review so far. That being said...

I'm a big Mignola fan. Furthermore, I'm a fan of his influences, particularly H. P. Lovecraft. The story of "Jenny Finn" is astonishingly close to what you might imagine Lovecraft's first foray into graphic novels would be, and the art seems like it could have been pulled out of the man's tortured head. It not only takes Lovecraftian themes like so many other works, but it actually creates its own storyline without resorting to base imitation, and really does create a creepy and engrossing world of its own. I don't think that this is all Mignola, either. He certainly gives it a bit of his flair, but Troy Nixey and Farel Dalrymple make a very strong showing as well.

There's a lot here beyond Lovecraftian influence. There's a hint of steampunk, a touch of "City of Lost Children," and believe it or not, a definite "Moby Dick" feel to the thing.

It's well-written, beautiful, and above all, scary. I can't recommend it enough, and I hope that there's more coming from this vein.

(Fish laying in the street saying "doom." How awesome is that?)

i've been a fan of troy nixey's art for years. nobody, but NOBODY draws tentacled and creepy-from-the-deep stuff like him, making him the perfect illustrator for most anything Lovecraftian.

JENNY FINN: DOOM MESSIAH collects Mike Mignola's 4-part story, begun in 1999 but incomplete until 2005, having jumped from Oni Press to Atomeka Press, and finally Boom! Studios. One wonders why this project wasn't simply handled by Dark Horse, Mignola's regular publisher. Better yet, with a bit of tweaking, it could have been incorporated into his Hellboy stories. In either case, I guess he had his reasons.

In a squalid, bustling port town of Victorian England, strange things are happening: phantoms haunt the streets; men are being infected by strange lesions that sprout tentacles, fins, and pincers; the fish in the marketplace whisper "doom"; and there's a serial killer on the loose. Enter Joe, a slaughterhouse worker, who sights the young Jenny Finn in a crowd and has to know more about her. His fascination leads him to encounters with ghosts, mediums, demented artists, Lovecraftian creatures, and even the Prime Minister. It's a combination of action and surrealism, moreso than any other Mignola comic I've read, and this made it difficult to fully appreciate - perhaps with future reads, I'll get into it more.

Black and white art is provided by Troy Nixey, with Farel Dalrymple filling in on the last issue. Nixey's grotesque art style brings to mind the work of Charles Bragg, and I suppose it suits the story, but it's not to my taste - when even the normal people look distorted and ugly, the real monsters don't make much of an impression (or was that the creators' point?). Dalrymple tries to capture Nixey's style but doesn't quite get it, causing the story to lose some steam in the final chapter.

Overall, DOOM MESSIAH wasn't horrible, but it didn't feel like a story that warranted its own miniseries. A one-shot or a short in one of Mignola's other books would have been just fine.

Fast, great condition and easy purchase. Arrived within ONE day.. I was amazed and will buy from this person again!

There were no product reviews so I just went ahead and bought it. Traded it in for $1 the next day at a used book shop. Wasted a little life reading this. I don't really see Mignola's influence in it at all. The story doesn't really go anywhere and doesn't have an intellectual feel like Hellboy can. The artwork is b&w and "busy", quite ugly overall. There are random fish in lots of panels with speech bubbles saying "Doom!". Corny.
If you're a Hellboy/BPRD fan like me, you should not waste your money on this. Get Zombieworld instead. At least it makes for fun reading.