Colder #2

written by Paul Tobin
art by Juan Ferreyra

This is what it is to be crazy in Tobin's universe.  One constantly exists in both worlds:  the one all sane people know and see and live in and the other the world of hungry monsters feeding on the insane, sucking them slowly dry like Nimble Jack, haunting them with voices only they can hear.  And, as fate—or possibly Jack—would have it, Declan can cure the insane, rescuing them from the Hunger World by poisoning it with his coldness.  Ferreyra's vision for the Hunger World is truly grim, a metropolis of crumbling, improbable architecture and populated by strange, cloaked feeders.  The detail is impeccable, ghosts of a real city lost in a gothic, Escher-esque wasteland.

Meanwhile, Nimble Jack takes them there to stimulate their fear even more, conjuring up their worst nightmares, devouring their spirits, and leaving them to kill what remains of their bodies.  Ferreyra works in these stories into the background details of his artwork.  Following panel by panel the violent death of the runner with the three dogs, for instance, is part of Nimble Jack's drama that largely gets lost in the immediate story around Declan, but it contributes considerably to the texture of Tobin's tale.

Now that he's awake, Declan's relationship with his longtime nurse Reece gets complicated.  Perhaps the urgency of the situation now that Jack has resurfaced in his life, perhaps his catatonic condition makes human contact all the more rewarding now that he's awake, perhaps because after five years in her care Declan has cultivated real trust and a kind of silent friendship with Reece, he is very quick to open his world up to her.  Perhaps because of his constant presence in her life, Reece is willing to listen to him and, against her better professional judgment, trust him.