Sirk TV Graphic Novel Review: WRAITH [IDW]

The essence of nightmares can be derived from the ones who caused them. The texture of safety moves from this angle. Within "Wraith" [Joe Hill/IDW/204pgs], the idea conforms to the texture that the bad must be punished and who better to exact revenge but the innocent, even if they are likely dead. The darker texture within the idea is the Wraith itself, which is actually a Rolls Royce limousine where a homicide happened. When it finds a downtrodden master who has been duped into an idea of a perfect place: Christmasland, it takes hold. There Christmasland is like the hellfire version of Pleasure Island mixed with the underlying irony of "Christmastown" from "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Mr. Charlie Manx has become the Wraith's servant luring murderous children to be his minions to destroy the guilty who, he ferries into this dreamland that cannot be found. The art has odes to "Trip To The Moon" but also to "The Third Man" while it traces the lies and double speak inherent to the con that embraces the gullible. Ultimately the story that stands out is a law enforcement agent and a convict who was led down the wrong path because doctors didn't treat his son before he died. The reason of life lost becomes an irony. The art percolates with the grotesque in say the aforementioned "The Nightmare Before Christmas" meets "Emily The Strange". Dreams in this idea cannot be killed but only undeniably skewed. The epilogue traces in almost prose form the rise of the con that produced Christmasland through its own undeniable hell-like energy. It spins the necessity that a con even without true collateral damage is still a con.C

By Tim Wassberg