Silent Hill Omnibus by Scott CiencinS.E. rating: 4 of 5 stars
Cathartic Reading: As a longtime Silent Hill fan (since the original) I needed a fix to overcome the disappointing issues plaguing game publisher Konami: Silent Hills for PS4 promised to be awesome (involvement with Guillermo del Toro and Norman Reedus-walking dead actor). Then it got abruptly cancelled. I turned to Silent Hill Omnibus and Silent Hill Omnibus, Volume 2 to satiate my need to roam thru a ghost town.
The Silent Hill Omnibus omnibus comprises 5 installments of the comic adaptions for the Silent Hill game franchise from Konami. The survival horror games are known for their Lovecraftian style of horror (weird, nondescript nightmares emphasized over sudden shock); typically a visitor goes to the town with serious emotional baggage, explores a ghost town, and comes face to face with realized version of their nightmares....that is the safe part of the workflow. Then visitors (gameplayers/readers) are taken to deeper levels of hell in which they yearn to revisit the haunting ghost town for safety. What is "real", "imagined", or "remembered" is never clear.
The comics are generally true to the ambiance. They introduce new characters, some of which mirror those in the games (i.e., police officers, a young girl). A few stories stretch the mood to include shoot-zombies-up gameplay vibes (ala Resident Evil) or B-rated horror (gratituous cheerleaders).
The art is likewise ambiguous; like the game's notorious fog that hides details, the art is not always clear. For Dying Inside (the fist chapter) this worked okay; by the end of the omnibus the art & story became confusing (too many characters that looked liked one another). The idea of intermixing various characters' memories, haunts, and stories was nice at first... but the story complexity diverged so much that the final story (which aims to bring closure to it all) remains confusing.
On the whole, the omnibus was satisfying and true enough for me to launch into Vol 2.. It's recommended to other Silent Hill fans needing a fix between games.
Silent Hill Omnibus Contains:
Silent Hill: Dying Inside
Silent Hill: Among the Damned
Silent Hill: Paint It Black
Silent Hill: The Grinning Man
Silent Hill: Dead/Alive
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