Something Spooky: A Haunting Tune Arises With ‘Blue In Green’

What really defines a horror story? Perhaps it’s monsters, killers, or things leaping out of the darkness causing scared jumps. Perhaps though, it’s not any precise item or being, but instead a specific tonal energy that defines horror.

Those aforementioned things can cause an emotion, generally fear or revulsion, within an individual to bring the horrific scary beats to the surface. Other times a general unease is elicited to really cause people to be off their guard. Really mining the human experience, and using relatable things with an edge of supernatural mixed with casual tension.

Enter, Blue In Green, a horror graphic novel from Ram V, Anand Rk, John Pearson, and Aditya Bidikar.

Music. The pursuit of greatness. Creativity as addiction.

These are the elements in question that become a backdrop to a horror story.

The solicit for the story reads: The dark and haunting portrayal of a young musician’s pursuit of creative genius—the monstrous nature of which threatens to consume him as it did his predecessor half a century ago. A real, what’s written on the package is what you get sort of situation.

Essentially, that young man, Erik, has fallen from the path of his music and when he comes home after the death of his mother, a horror of sorts begins to change him. So much of what is on the page is an apt feeling that far too many creatives have encountered or worry about. That drive for success, and the feelings that come with no achieving it, or feeling inadequate, or somehow feeling like we’ve lost the juice. Outside pressures of others and not “living up to our potential” are haunting things in and of themselves.

Even without some supernatural element creeping beside them all.

Yet, this nagging feeling that plagues those of an artistic bent is given a monstrous otherworldly form. That thing on your shoulder that drags things down, and whispers in the ear. It is here that Ram V lays it all bare and digs to the depths of personal horror.

Remember the intro? There was a question about what creates the horror or defines it. With comic books the visuals are the major part of the language that is being spoken, both the art and the lettering that forms actual words. It is within those spaces that the tone or defining qualities begin to emerge.

Anand Rk, Pearson, and Bidikar sell every bit of the horror that resonates in this story from the very start.

Artistically there is an otherworldly almost haunting nature to the rougher, sketchier, and less detailed work that appears on the page. It’s heavy and dense, foregoing depth in many cases for the bigger emotional impact. Giving us imagery that is not precise but is familiar or foreboding enough to carry everything further just from the feelings it is sure to evoke. All of the colors are washed and light, with darkness and some more vibrant colors splashed around for effect and depth of its own making.

Often things really skew into almost painting or water-coloresque territory. Fading in and out, leaving faces clear or fuzzy, almost like a memory. We’re witness to a story that is being narrated to us, and therefore this feeling is one that we’re meant to feel and know. A story that is before us but just a bit out of reach, just like so many things in life and the past.

A major thing that Ram V does here to really focus is allow most of the actual word language on page to be through narrative captions. This is Erik’s story to tell, and we get all of his feelings and musings, choosing very specific points to allow us to hear from others. Instead of the story expositing at us through dialogue, we’re on this journey with the character.

It is here, with the words, which Bidikar continues to really shine. Finding ways to make the words even heavier within the boxes and few bubbles, creating deep resonating SFX, and other visual beats that sell what we’re witnessing.

Comics are a truly collaborative medium, and nowhere is that more clear than in projects like these. Where every single contribution just gels, and swirls together. Everyone’s voices creating a chorus, unmatched in the power of its unity.

Through this Something Spooky endeavor, I’ve brought forward stories that feature the horror of human capacity (true evil) as well as the horror of beings of immortal terrifying power & desires (vampires). Truly, ending with a piece that explores the horrors that we bring upon ourselves mixed with the supernatural feels right.