Día De Los Muertos #2

Dos
"Mine"
written by Joshua Williamson
art by Riley Rossmo
colors by Megan Wilson

"The Skinny One"
written by Ed Brisson
art by Riley Rossmo
colors by Megan Wilson

"Hellqueen"
written by Jeff Mariotte
art by Riley Rossmo
colors by Jean-Paul Csuka

The first collection in Día De Los Muertos was occasionally dark to be sure, as any exploration of death is likely to be, but the second installment of Rossmo's themed comics is decidedly darker than its predecessor.  "Mine" initially seems little more than a stylish murder mystery when Gwen disappears during a Day of the Dead festival while on a Mexican vacation with her friends.  Her apparent champion is our unnamed narrator, a man with a very imposing physique and a dogged personality who discovers Gwen to be the latest victim of a serial murderer who specializes in beautiful blonde women who get their faces painted for the festival.  It seems for a while that, like George Sluizer's film Spoorloos (The Vanishing), her lover was about to share her fate, but quite unexpectedly it turned into a battle of competing serial killers, one ambushed by the other seeking revenge for stealing his special target.  Rossmo is responsible for all the artwork in Día De Los Muertos #2, and the variety of styles really testifies to his range, but his work in "Mine" is probably the most beautiful in the issue.  In particular, the two-page spread during the narrator's drug-induced trip (pp. 6-7) is very fine, beautiful and unsettling.

"The Skinny One" is far more straight-forward than "Mine" and a fine companion story to "Reflections" from Día De Los Muertos #1.  It is a story of bringing the truth to light.  On the Day of the Dead, the spirit of a dead, young train-hopper returns to the station of the abusive Mexican policeman who killed him, who is himself hoping for a visit from the spirit of his beloved wife.  But the boy doesn't come alone; he brings with him many other of the policeman's victims as well as Marissa, the policeman's wife.  In feeble defense of himself Jorge continues to throw slander at the ghosts, attacks their credibility as outsiders, and refuses to acknowledge his violence, but to no avail.  Hearing none of his excuses and denials, she leaves him, an embarrassment to her memory and no longer her love.  At first "The Skinny One" is a little difficult to follow, since there is little visual distinction between current events and the memories of its ghost, but once it settles in, it is easy to appreciate.  The strangely 'toon-ish aesthetic works well for its victim children, and the generous use of page-white throughout sets up Rossmo's evocative isolation of Jorge on the final page.  It is the account of a man who, though not held accountable for his corruption and cruelty during life, is by the dead, whose judgment is ultimately more important.

In contrast to the sobriety of "Mine" and "The Skinny One," though each uses it to widely differing effect, "Hellqueen" is a surprisingly humorous if morbid contribution.  Low-level, would-be gangster Gilberto and his younger brother Gabriel, whom he's trying to recruit into the life, are tasked with spiking several severed heads on a local bridge for dramatic effect on Día de los Muertos.  Gilberto is as puffed up about his newly discovered "importance" as he is wrong, convinced of his own power and the desirable things it brings, but in Mariotte's words, he's quite pathetic.  The gore is gruesome, but played for laughs, both absurd and brutal.  When visiting the grave of their grandmother after finishing the job, they are suddenly captured by demons and dragged through a hellmouth, summoned by the queen of Hell, who as it turns out is their grandmother.  And she's not happy with their lifestyle choices.  She berates them, scolds them, humiliates the demons under her rule with her magic spatula, and sends her grandsons back to the graveyard, freshly terrified and motivated to clean up their lives before they burn in Hell with the others.  Their first demonstration of their reformation:  picking up the litter in the cemetery!