Redfork

by Alex Paknadel, Nil Vendrell (Illustrator), Giulia Brusco (Illustrator)

A supernatural thriller from writer Alex Paknadel (All Against All, Giga) and artist Nil Vendrell (Shirtless Bear-Fighter!), with color art by Giulia Brusco (The 7 Deadly Sins, Scalped).

Ex-con Noah McGlade returns to his coal mining hometown of Redfork to find it blighted by opioid abuse and economic decline. But there's something even darker draining the very life from this town, and as Noah digs deeper he unearths a dormant horror that threatens to consume what little he has left to live for.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Science Fiction

Kindle Edition

First published November 17, 2020

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Noah convinces his younger brother Cole to rob a local dentist's office of its Oxycontin supply, but the dentist shows up and Cole shoots him. Noah sends Cole away, and takes the rap for him.

Six years later, Noah is released from prison, and he returns to his hometown, Redfork. A lot of the miners are striking against the mining corporation Amcore, because of a swathe of layoffs. A group of inexperienced miners are brought in, including Cody. There's an explosion, many miners are killed, a few are saved but in critical condition. Sadly, something else is released by the explosion..

Redfork is a timely story - a dying business, a town that depends on that business, a ruthless corporation, many locals addicted to opioids. Throw a generous dollop of body horror in there, and a lick of cosmic horror - it's Ed Brubaker meets Cullen Bunn.



There's a nice slow build up of dread, with an ending that feels a bit rushed, perhaps.

The art is great, and successfully tackles the body horror part (that kind of stuff can quickly become muddled).

Recommended.

(Received an ARC through Edelweiss)

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Redfork mixes a slice of life drama about a guy getting out of prison and going back to his family and a evil creature lurking underneath is town who gets free and begins to destroy everything he knows and loves.

Noah years prior to when this story takes place protects his brother from going to jail by taking the blame. Once he does he returns back home to set things right but it's not that simple. With a collapsed tunnel his brother is one of the only survivors. But the town begins to change and the deeper you get into the dark past of it the worst it becomes. Shady organization, family drama, and death everywhere...Redfork is real life horror mixed with supernatural.

And for that, and the art, this was a pretty enjoyable read. Well done characters with a nice family dynamic throughout and the brutal art helped push the horror part. I didn't love the pacing, at times feeling slightly sluggish, other times TOO quick to capture the emotion Paknadel was trying to portray. But overall, this is a nice modern horror comic that I enjoyed! A 3.5 but I'll bump it to a 4.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

After six years in prison, Noah McGlade is unwelcome in his home town of Redfork, West Virginia, but his father is dying, and he wants to see his daughter even if he is ashamed to be seen by her. What starts as a domestic drama about the coal miners and the opioid crisis takes a left turn into the supernatural as McGlade's family secrets are overshadowed by the secret that has been buried deep in the ground beneath them for ages but now creeps into the town the way oxycodone did before it.

McGlade is a bland protagonist, especially compared to his friend D-Ray. The writing and art are just as lackluster despite the many injections of gore and body horror.

Boring and forgettable.

[Q. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A small town in coal country afflicted with an opioid epidemic and poverty is being taken advantage of by a powerful corporation when an eldritch horror awakens and slowly sinks its claws into the population. Interesting and relevant setting within an average story. The characters seem a bit stock and there's an over reliance on gore. But despite those complaints this wasn't bad for a first try.

[JT · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the concept of the story was interesting but the actual story telling wasn't. We were thrown into a mess of family drama and the neighborhood gossips. I just didn't care for any of it. The artwork is what saved this book in my opinion.

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art in this was insane! I loved it.

Redfork gets 3.5 stars from me. The illustration and colouring was willlllld, vivid, striking. At the outset of the comic, the art effectively captured common cultural elements that one could describe as white and middle-American.

I liked the beginning of the story - greedy company screwing a town battling opioid addiction, health crises and poverty. The workers strike and a family is torn by a son hospitalized by a coal-mining accident gone wrong. The story progresses - a son, fresh out the joint, who took the fall for his brother in a crime gone wrong, attempts to reconnect with his family. The emergence of a potential yet mysterious cure for common ailments that town has developed dealing with coal: cancer, black lung, etc. This cure being peddled by a mysterious man whose intentions we are uncertain about...

The story lost the fuck out of me when it turned into a horror comic. I did not expect that turn. The grotesque imagery was incredibly well done, but I didn't expect the story to go that route. I thought, based on the set-up, that it was going to be a corporate-crime/conspiracy/revenge almost pulp sort of comic, in the vein of Kill or Be Killed. I was wrong, but that's okay.

The story became super strange and far out the further I read. It's strange because I felt like I had the same experience reading Blue In Green by Ram V - apparently, both these comics are out of the same studio, and that makes perfect sense. When things could be gritty and tell a real story that is followed up by something standard (revenge, murder, etc.), they turn midway towards the mystical and horror genre. It always feels like a bait-and-switch, but the art, colouring and illustration was satisfying enough to keep me hanging on to the end.

The colouring was fantastic!!!!

[Bill Coffin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story about an ancient horror unearthed in dirt-poor coal country has an interesting premise about old crimes coming back to exact their revenge upon the present. The problem with this is that it begins by setting up a pretty compelling set of characters in an all-too-familiar cycle of poverty, drugs, violence and crime, and by the time we're fully pulled into that, we get hit with a Cthulu-lite kind of horror that takes over the whole town. Honestly, the story about a town trapped in its own cycles of decay by the company that owns them all is way scarier than any tentacled, bulbous horror from the Outer Dark. At least, it was here. And once you realize that, the scares all go away, and the rest becomes an exercise of going through the motions.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible looking, powerful, and haunting horror comic with some compelling rural noir elements and some fantastic characters. To say more would be to spoil things. This story is an incredible journey. Take it. You'll be glad you did.

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Redfork collects issues 1-6 of the series written by Alex Paknadel with art by Nil Vendrell.

Noah McGlade returns to hometown after getting out of prison. The coal mining town has come in hard times with layoffs at the mine and a huge opiod addiction problem. After an explosion in the mine injures Noah's brother, a mysterious stranger appears who has the power to cure any bodily ailment, but there is a price to pay for this power.

This book instantly captured my interest. I am such a sucker for small town America horror or crime stories. This book keeps you wondering what is happening in the town. All the characters feel extremely real and you can feel their pain and despair. The horror is extremely creepy and keeps the suspense building. I highly recommend Redfork to any horror fans.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A town sells its souls to a devil for a chance to be rid of all their problems; it's a tried and true formula for a horror comic and it's done well here. Noah takes the fall for his brother and ends up in jail, upon his return he finds his tiny mining town ravaged by addiction, poverty, and physical illness. Of course there's some bright and shining man from deep in the mines who promises to make everything better- but everyone comes to realize there's a cost. He's just another disease roping them in to do his bidding. Most of the horror comes from Nil Vendrell's fantastic body horror of these decaying humans and tumorous monsters. And it's incredible! The crust of the Earth and the winding mines look like the make-up of human skin, waiting to be peeled away to reveal the bloody horror underneath.

[Paul S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best of TKO's 3rd release and easily making it on my shortlists of "Awesome TKO Content" and "Why Do I Keep Buying TKO Comics?"

Deliciously done Needful Things-esque horror with savory commentary, oh so savory.
My favorite horror stories, I mean the ones that touch/chill/terrorize me, are the ones that show the legit horrors of reality, the struggle of being human and coping with our circumstances; then sprinkle in something supernatural to get the ship sailing. Redfork nails it.
I'm pretty sure Stephen King would love this one.
Consider this an unauthorized King endorsement by pseudo-proxy.

Well done characters, setting, and pace. Thoughtful details. Art and color on point. Home run.

[Matthew WK · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. First 3 issues were 4 stars and the mystery and characters were a lot of fun. It fell off a bit for me over the past 3 issues, but this one is still worth a read with the caveat that you enjoy this genre. Admittedly, this is not my genre of choice so that affects my rating a bit. I'll probably read one more time before deciding whether to keep or sell. I don't necessarily feel I need to keep it and if I didn't read it again, that'd be ok to.

[Luke Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely good and surprisingly personal, for a horror fantasy. About some all too real shit. A strong strain of THE THING influence, which is literally the highest praise I can give. I can easily see this being an HBO water cooler hit. And whoever they get to play Gallowglass getting an Emmy. Someone film this pronto.

[Jacob Helberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only mildly enjoyed 2 of the 6 issues. The other four ranged from downright bad to just okay at best. I think the idea was pretty cool but the execution just was not there for me. I didn't like any character in this besides Jane (who you're supposed to dislike for exploiting her "family's wealth"). Her and D-Ray were the only characters with any bit of sense in them. I was really looking forward to this trade but it just left me a bit disappointed...

[Kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was in my top five graphic novels for the entire year.

Perfect amount of gore. Perfect true horror. Perfect small town vibes. Brilliant dialogue (maybe a little too brilliant at times for the characters). Great story. Characters were good enough to move the story forward.

This was a nice surprise. I’ll be reading more from this author.

[David Hodgkiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark and gruesome yet strangely relatable for anyone who comes from a place in industrial decline. It's short and as a result lacks a bit of character development, but what it does it does very well

[Dan P · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid rendition of that old Lovecraftian proposal: There's Something Evil Underground, but now through the smoky lens of exploitation in Appalachian coal country. A good if familiar horror comic

[Alex Sarll]

"It ever bother you that the Good Lord sweats the small stuff? You could spend your whole life tryin' to atone for some bad shit you done when you was fifteen, but come Judgment Day your ass could still get throwed in the pit 'cause you forgot to wash the damn dishes one time. [...] There should be, like, runner-up heaven for sorry-ass motherfuckers like me who never quite shook off the bad, y'know? But there ain't no runner-up heaven, and there never will be. You know why? 'Cause God's an American, that's why."

You never read happy stories set in West Virginia, do you? No merrily skipping through the woodlands before heading home to a nice little cottage. It's always dying mining towns, drugs, brutality, broken dreams. But at least early on, this does it well enough to make me regain a little faith in publisher TKO, after reading a few really shaky efforts they put out by creators from whom I'd usually expect better. It's not perfect, not by a long shot – things start to go a bit knock-off Stephen King once the terrible thing that's been sealed in the dark beneath the town gets out, and as with King, the tension of the devil's initial charming mode is far more exciting than the release once it goes all sturm und drang and the Macguffin comes into play. I could definitely have stood a longer middle act, and a shorter finale. Even before that, there are glitches: a page designed to spiral around a sinkhole is a cool idea, but needs to guide the eye more intuitively if it's not to end up confusing; and having had the things since childhood myself, I'm really not convinced finding your kid's ended up with a Ventolin inhaler while you've been away is sufficiently distressing news to justify punching the side of the panel out. But the creative team all manage to make sure there's still life in amongst the despair, doing justice to a grim situation without turning it into one-note misery porn. Nil Vendrell and Giulia Brusco's art gives us a town that's battered but not quite beaten down, even if few of the inhabitants have much to look forward to beyond becoming coal themselves in a few million years. And Alex Paknadel's script knows that even people at the bottom of the heap can still have a bit of verve to their dialogue: consider "I cussed her out for it a million times, but she'd share a needle with a muskrat if it asked her nice", or "This stupid mutt's breath still smells like a fry-cook's taint". It's not pretty, but nor is it a chore to read. Meanwhile, the representative of the company that's chewed the town up and is now preparing to drop it without a second thought doesn't bat an eyelid as she blames "the eco-jihadists in Washington", even while she's opening up fresh fields in Azerbaijan, and a church's billboard bears only the pointer "Job 20:26" – which a quick check reveals as reading "Complete darkness is held in reserve for his treasures, and unfanned fire will devour him."

[John Hartford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first TKO Presents book and I have to say the build of the book was top notch.

Alex Paknadel does a great job setting up the town of Redfork. The former mining boom town is just the perfect setting for this type of horror story. I don't want to spoil anything but proper horror usually is a reflection on reality. I think Redfork does this brilliantly.

Nil Vendrell's pencils are great and lend themselves well to the story. Some of their work here is totally off-putting in the good horrific way. They also do a great job with little character touches that really come through in the larger print.

The only minus in this book is the ending felt rushed. I almost wish we had a few more issues to flesh out the story.

[Dan Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Redfork attempts to do for Coal Country what Stephen King novels have done for New England in how the setting and location play into key elements of the horror that is about to take place. Even the main antagonist has a bit of Randall Flagg in him with the way he captivates people to do some truly mind-bending evil things.

By no means am I saying creators Alex Paknadel, Nil Vendrell, and Giulia Brusco are trying to copy King’s style rather what makes King’s work so effective can be found here. There is no question places like West Virginia have fallen on hard times and that fabric of those issues are woven within this narrative.

How major industry has pillaged the land to leave the people in despair, and how the lack of hope has fallen over the citizens like a decaying disease. Many have fallen on hard times and those hard times have become harder do to the opioid crisis and a lack of any type of structure to help those most in need. This is a story involving otherworldly monsters by the true villains this is aiming at are clear.

Having an important message can only take you so far. You need a good story as well and that is here. Noah McGlade is an ideal protagonist who seeks ot to overcome a broken past to fix the place he calls home. These are people who are damaged but they are not lost. Watching them come to that realization is a hell of a journey.

[Arantxa Orig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I generally don't read comics like these (the dark, edgy kind) but the cover and the blurb lured me in 😅😳😳😳 I read the comic at a slower pace than usual so I can remember the characters’ names and search for the words they used in their conversations (lingo I don't usually hear in mainstream American media) 😅😅😅 I didn’t expect to enjoy the story a lot! 👍👍👍 The pacing and exposition were excellent 👏👏👏 I love how some of the comic panels were arranged (the page where the panels showed Noah and Unity circling a sinkhole as they were talking about Harper still makes me gasp in admiration); and the coloring was noticeably clean and well done 🤗🤗🤗 I also love the parallels made between the Paisley brothers and Cody and Noah (remember folks, don’t leave your brother behind in a coal mine with an Eldritch horror!) 😂

[Doctor Action · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars - but I scored it as a 4 as I enjoyed it.

Dialogue, art and pacing all satisfying. Solid, hearty, throwaway fun. The violence was energetic, extreme and funny, which is how I like it. Nothing too serious and disturbing, thank you very much.

There was some heart in the setting and folks in a town that had been hollowed out by the shutdown of the local industry and is suffering with health and opiate problems.

The ending was a bit slap-bang-done and made no real sense but what horror comic makes any sense in the wrapping up? Better to get it done quick, tbh.

A fun read.

[Rolando José Rodríguez De León · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good GN, It starts as a normal everyday story and little by little becomes supernatural and horror. The illustration and story work really well, character development is good and the main character evolves and we see him as he is.
It's a must for horror and non horro fans, me, I'm going to buy it on paper and add it to my collection.

[Chaunceton Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Now that is how supernatural thrillers need to be written. Original and engaging. Glorious Lovecraftian. Really well done to all the creators. This book is incredible.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll give any TKO release the benefit of the doubt and at least give it a try. Pretty much everything they have done has been to my taste and filled that spot when ive read it. Redfork, much like The Pull which is also part of the third wave, had an interesting premise that it just didnt fulfill fully for me. To be fair my rating is a bit low but after the first couple of parts I was really into this, helped not only by some great art but some truly interesting page layouts (the sinkhole and the cigarettes page is outstanding), after that though when the horror side started to take over from the criminal/slice of life/etc it just kind of fell apart for me.
By the time we got towards the last couple of parts i really didnt care what happened to anyone in the story or in what was going on.

[Stephen Snead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just happened across it.

It was on Dailey deals and I gave it a shot. Really well done and fully contained in one volume instead of having to buy it in parts. I'm 64 and grew up on comic books. But, I'm not really a graphic novel fan. But, this is well done and if you are a graphic novel fan I think you'll like it. A lot. I'm a retired social worker from the South and the addiction to pain killers, meth and other junk is killing rural America or at least hurting it badly. This is both horror and social commentary without being overly preachy. Enjoy.

[Matt Graupman · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange - yet satisfying - concoction this comic turned out to be. Combining rural drama, Lovecraftian threats, eco-horror, and a good dollop of John Carpenter-ish creepiness, “Redfork” is a mutant of a graphic novel but one that’s oddly appealing, like the three-eyed fish on “The Simpsons.” Alex Paknadel’s story is enchanting and unsettling in equal measure while Nil Vendrell’s art elevates an already creepy vibe to nightmarish levels. Unexpected and wildly unpredictable, “Redfork” is a blood-soaked page-turner.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not terrible, but not fully-realized, either. This starts as an interesting horror story set in a modern American coal town: people are down on their luck since the mines have largely closed, opioid addictions are rampant, etc. Enter a supernatural force in the form of an old-timey miner (no one really remarks on this, which is a bit strange) who has the power to seemingly cure people of their afflictions, and the stage is set for what could have been something pretty special. As is, this is kind of silly, though. The story is really underdeveloped. The art isn't bad.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 that I’ve bumped up to a 4. I’ve wanted to check out Alex Paknadel’s horror stuff since I read that xmen comic he did earlier this year so I’m happy I picked this up. The premise was interesting and Nil Vendrell and Giulia Brusco’s art really added so much to the vibe. I would have liked for it to be a bit longer, just so we could get into it more because it did feel a little rushed, especially the conclusion. I do always enjoy horror with an open ending though. The atmosphere and tension were good though, so it was a pretty solid read.

[Lucas Lima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, what a great book!

Great supernatural, Lovecraftian book, with a great, sharp writing, nice dialogues talking about the good and, mostly, the bad about the American way, with a nice ending. The drawing are very good as well, keeping uo with Paknadel's script. The page with Cody's "situation" is one of the most impressive things i've seen in comics.

TKO is just killing it right now, and i think everyone should get one of the books of this publisher.