Random Happenstance

The other day on BlueSky, somebody was looking for a comic I knew I had seen recently, which turned out to be Jordi Bernet's Solo #6. Which took me for damn ever to find on the blog, because I didn't have it tagged under "horror comics," presumably because it wasn't all horror. This one probably isn't either, but let's see! From 2006, Solo #8, by Teddy Kristiansen.

I'm trying to recall where else I've seen Kristiansen's art, since while he's from Denmark, it always feels like it's from somewhere colder, where the locals have to rub walrus blubber on themselves to keep from freezing to death. Or, I may just be meandering, because the lead story features Deadman but is written by Gaiman, so we're skipping that. "The Good Book" is written by Steven Seagle, and tells of some English missionaries in Papua, New Guinea. One comes to a bad end, while another is saved; not by the Bible, but by another good book.

The rest are written by Kristiansen himself: in "Love Story" an artist left sleepless in a heat wave walks the city in the cooler night, and becomes infatuated with a woman also awake. Next, "Ruins," where another artist is commissioned to paint the works of an aged architect, but as ruins. That one seems like it could go in a Lovecraft direction, but doesn't; it just feels sad. Finally, "Ice" follows a doomed Antarctic expedition, to its seemingly inevitable end. 

Not my favorite issue of Solo, but Kristiansen's got an interesting style. Oh, I used to read the Vertigo House of Secrets, that's where I'd seen him before.