I featured this before I went away on holiday, and then I had a good chance to read it while sitting in the sun!
This is the definitive edition of David Hine’s Strange Embrace, a tortured modern gothic tale of madness, death and sexual longing. The world of Strange Embrace is one of pain and sorrow, obsession and damnation – a world that twists and pollutes the lives of all that enter it.
Sukumar helps with the deliveries for his father’s shop, and every Friday he takes groceries to an old, seemingly abandoned antiques shop. He has never seen the mysterious customer, but the dark, dusty shop is filled with strange, sculpted demons…
When Sukumar meets Alex, a manipulative, amoral psychic with an obsessive desire to discover the story of the old man in the antiques shop, he is plunged into a terrifying world of madness, murder, torture, psychological horror, suicide and damnation. Strange Embrace is frightening, shocking, chilling… and very strange.
This brand new digital version, exclusively available on SEQUENTIAL, takes David Hine’s original black and white masterpiece and supplements it with a whole host of extra features, including audio commentary by David Hine for each and every comics page, pop-up pages showing artwork galleries, original covers, an interview with Paul Gravett, an academic piece – Visualising the Fantastic in Strange Embrace – by Marcus Oppolzer, and the original Strange Embrace scripts.
A strange embrace and and a series of stories with a story – just like the story teller within the story, Alex, you get drawing in to this strange, but excellent graphic novel.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this when I picked it up, but once I did I read it from cover to cover as it was so enthralling! Covering a large timescale could be persevered as difficult, as well as the story of three individuals who’s lives (and deaths) are links, but this story manages it with aplomb!
The three main characters are well rounded and have their stories told well, in addition to that the supporting cast – wives, parents etc are not left out either. The changes in pace for the times are well rounded and don’t break from the continuity and flow of the story – you don’t find yourself waiting for a flashback to get over as you want to get onto the main story!
The art is fantastic, with some scenes giving a genuine shudder and some real nice single shots too!
This is defiantly worth a read and worth your time!
David Hine’s Strange Embrace is available on the Sequential App on the iPad.
