Advance Review: ‘The Eye Collector’ #5 Starts To Reveal A Few Secrets
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
It’s weird. It’s creepy. But it’s finally starting to make sense. At least a little bit. The illustrations are still the main reason to pick this series up, but the story is starting to catch up.
Overall
9/10The first panel of the first page of The Eye Collector #5 says it all.
“This can’t be real,” young Nathan exclaims.
Four this surreal horror story’s first four issues, readers have been trying to understand exactly what’s happening — what’s real and what’s in a child’s imagination. In this chapter, things get even darker as the collector takes the young boy on a trip to the moon, where the series started. Is it a dream or is it real? Is there even a difference in this story?
Here’s some good news for those confused by the narrative written by Jonathan Ball and GMB Chomichuk. The titular collector gives us a hint of why he’s obsessed with gathering eyeballs. Minor spoilers prevent revealing too much here, but even a little exposition and understanding is useful when all we’ve gotten to date is a lot of weirdness.
Not that there’s anything wrong with weird. But for those readers who like a more straightforward story — even a horror one — they may have given up a few issues ago.
If they stayed, it’s likely because of Chomichuk’s illustrations. He has consistently impressed with his depictions of the otherworldly collector, the innocent children, and the creepy parents. This time, Chomichuk gives us his haunting take on a stairway to nowhere, religious iconography, as well as perhaps the scariest valley on the moon. And they are masterfully displayed in full splash pages for us to gawk at and explore with our … well, eyes.
The Eye Collector is by no means a perfect series. It’s still a tad too weird for its own good. But if these creators can continue to drop hints about what’s going on and why, we’ll forgive their trespasses enjoy the story for what it probably is — great horror.
The Eye Collector #5 — written by Jonathan Ball and GMB Chomichuk, illustrated by Chomichuk, and lettered by Lyndon Radchenka — will be available Wednesday in comic book stores and on digital platforms from Image Comics.
