Mountainhead

Mountainhead #1-5

by John Lees, Ryan Lee (Illustrator)

Don’t slow down. Don’t get comfortable. Don’t think you’re safe. Be ready to run. Something sinisters lurks in this graphic novel that is part psychological thriller and part horror story. Abraham Stubbs and his father Noah roam America in a nomadic existence. Convinced they are being pursued by sinister government forces, Noah has them living off the grid, burgling houses to survive. Elsewhere, on Mount Rector, the lone survivor of a climbing expedition staggers homeward, covered in blood. Both are on an inevitable collision course with the picturesque Canadian resort town of Braeriach. Massive storm clouds are brewing. The animals are running. Something else is on its way.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

139 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 13, 2021

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

A boy is taken away from his family and returned 10 years later. The pacing is way off on this. The story swiftly changes in the last two issues from the story of a boy trying to reacclimate with his family to some strange, body horror, wanna be The Thing story. The pacing was so off and rushed in the last half of the story.

I didn't care for Ryan Lee's art at all. It's way too cartoony for a horror story. Everyone looks like caricatures. Then when the story devolves to a body horror one, there's so much chaos in each panel you can't tell what's what.

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A crazy twisted tale of a boy who was stolen as a baby and then years later comes back to a town that's...not so friendly.

I think John Lees hits dialogue real well. A lot of characters sound real and events move at a brisk pace. Having James come back to live with his family is a nice story there of reunited with lost ones and trying to pick up the pieces while also wanting to respect the person who had raised him even if he raised him as a thief. Alot of it works and the visuals are brutal and fucked up with plenty of nightmare fuel for you to feast on.

I did feel the actual plot moved too quick at times. People die SO quick and you don't get a chance to feel the pain. I also think the ending was wrapped up too quick. This could have easily been a 8 issue series that would of greatly benefited to give us more time with the family and get to care about them.

But overall it's still a real solid horror story and Lees is real good with his horror. A 3 out of 5.

[Sarospice · Rating 1 out of 5]

This started with promise: Abraham and his dad are survivalists caught robbing a place. Abraham gets caught, dad doesn't. abe finds out he was actually kidnapped by the man he thought was his father. His real name is James and he's returned to his "real" family. A lot could have been developed in what's real and not for this character, what can be trusted or not. Instead this turns into a routine everyone in town is a monster from THE THING and only kids know what to do about it. Maybe covid made the creators crack but it rushes to a predictable and flaccid end. The art is often overdone and often you can't tell what's going on or which character you're looking at.

[Matthew Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was much better than I thought it would be. As a horror story, I thought this one was executed very well. I came across this one after picking up a piece of art from an artist, so going in blind I wasn’t sure what to expect. The art fit perfectly and the horror was great. I enjoyed the story behind the horror that these characters were dealing with, as well. Overall, a really solid read!

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mountainhead collects issues 1-5 of the IDW Comics series written by John Lees, illustrations by Ryan Lee, and colors by Doug Garbark.

After being abducted as an infant and raised by conspiracy theorist for ten years, a young boy is reunited with his real parents in Colorado. As he tries to reacclimate, there is something wrong with this idealistic mountain town. Something really wrong.

This was a bizarre series. It's two seperate stories crammed into one 5-issue series. It's one half thriller and fish out of water and one half body horror and creature feature. Each may have been able to work on their own, but not rushed into such a small amount of storytelling space. The art is also not for me and doesn't fit the thriller portion of the book. The art is extremely cartoony and over-the-top caricature. One characters's head is bigger than the rest of his body combined, but no other character is drawn like that. For the body horror it fits, but for everything else, it doesn't match the tone being presented.

[Valéria. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toto nemalo chybu. Už z listovania pred kúpením som vedela, že ma to bude baviť. Tá kresba je zaujímavá a detailná, farby to nádherne podtrhujú. Príbeh je orientovaný na rodinu s pár emotívnymi momentami a inak je to čistý horor s krvou, vnútornosťami, malými dievčatkami čo na chodníku kameňom mlátia do králičkovej hlavy, kopec monštier a super akcie. Za mňa skvelý nález a som rada že som si bod tohtoročnej challenge splnila práve týmto.

[Benjamin Bauer · Rating 2 out of 5]

What starts out as a promising exploration of a twisted father-son relationship gradually morphs into a Thing-esque body-horror romp without much in the way of substance. I was all in for seeing how Abraham adjusted to his "real" family, with the menace of his false father Noah hovering in the background. Was definitely less down for the man vs nature (If that's what they want to call it) siege that dominated the last third of the story.

On the art side, the quality vacillates wildly. While it kinda adds to the fever-dream-ish vibes of the overall story, at times it made some of the panels busy and confusing. Lee does have a knack for ghoulish close-ups of peoples' faces though, I'll give him that. At his best his work in Mountainhead reminded me of Sam Kieth's work on the Maxx.

Lees on the other hand definitely fumbled the writing of this one for me. I wasn't the biggest fan of his prior works (Sink, And Then Emily Was Gone) but they had a certain chutzpah and gristly flair that made them compulsively readable. They also both took place in the writer's native Scotland, giving them a rough-edged authenticity. The Glaswegian comics scribe struck me as a bit out of his element in his writing and characterizations of a Canadian mountain community. At first I relished the idea, as a Canadian myself, of seeing a quiet, WASP-y Canadian town have all its rot stirred up a la Stephen King. Alas, the setting felt reduced to window-dressing. There's even some awkward dialogue moments between the kid-protagonists where it just feels clear that the writer isn't North American, nor a kid himself.

Issues like that, coupled with a lack of solid arc for Abraham, keeps Mountainhead from being an idiosyncratic, cult horror like past Lees works. What we're left with is the trade paperback equivalent of a Netflix original horror film. Entertaining at times, no doubt about that. I just wish I had cared more about Abraham and the inhabitants of Braeriach than the writing allowed me to.

[Rick Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

It starts off rather promising - a young boy, Abraham, and his father, Noah, live as nomadic outlaws who travel across the northwestern United States robbing homes to make a living. When one of these burglaries goes wrong and the pair are arrested, Abraham is informed by the police that Noah isn't his true father and that he was abducted at the age of 3. Abraham is taken to his real parents who live in British Columbia, but his affection for Noah continues to linger. What was a pretty interesting setup is then overturned for some random infusion of body and cosmic horror that just didn't mix well. The pacing is highly disjointed as the story takes sudden turns with little to no development for the many other characters involved.

Ryan Lee's artwork also didn't work for me for the most part. It's very stylized but also quite crude, and something about the cartoonish quality of it didn't mesh well with the more emotional moments of the story. Even the wilder horror components of the story looked a little off to me, and at times even a little gross looking. I think the style would have worked for a more campier horror comic, which Mountainhead certainly wasn't trying to be.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a weird read--a sort of mash-up of Stephen King and Lovecraft, but less serious thanks to the almost Mad Magazine artwork. It's a good story and I thought the premise was pretty interesting, but the ending felt a little rushed. I hope there's more to come from this series, as it's a promising start, but a rather incomplete one if that's all there is.

Cautiously recommendable.

[Eric Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75
It’s a solid Lovecraft/Cronenberg but would have liked some more paranoia (a la Carpenter’s The Thing). Story ain’t super new but I like the mountain location and the twist of the main character’s backstory. Ending felt a little rushed. The art was fun and helped soften the gore/horror.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t think there will ever be enough psilocybin in all of North America to get me on this story’s wavelength. Feels like something excessive from Heavy Metal, not what I have been seeing recently from IDW. Alas.

[Chris Peckover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interestingly, the build up and character work in this is solid, but then the horror just gets strangely cliche and unengaging, like the creators had all these incredible visuals they wanted to get out, but didn't know how to make it cohesive with as good a story as they'd already laid out.

[Chanel Hardy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning of the story and the second half feel like two separate stories. I thought the reveal about Abraham would play a bigger role with some kind of twist. Overall it was a cool read, but I was expecting a little more.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mountain town meets John Carpenters “The Thing.” Gabriel Rodriguez meets Scottie Young art. I dug it.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

The text on this is so tiny it was nigh impossible to read. Such an asinine choice I refused to read it for about a week after checking it out. It should get 1 star for that.

DPL hoopla

[Hazel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this! It was weird and gave me a headache in the way only comics can. I felt th is could have been a longer series and fixed some of the pacing issues.

[Daniel Mossop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great art, pretty messed up story. One for fans of horror.

[Brett Starr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a cool graphic novel. Very, very well done. Excellent artwork & excellent storyline. I would put this graphic novel in the action-supernatural category.

"My father used to say that folk went a special kind of crazy from spending too long up in the Rockies. An unnatural place for a man", he'd say. He was right. Nothing about the mountains says we should be up there. "Existing up there, tiny & insignificant before nature, one wrong step from death... your sense of reality can slip away. And a mind cut off from reality can be capable of things beyond comprehension..." "My father, he had a name for that kind of madness. He called it... MOUNTAINHEAD!"

Mountainhead is my favorite kind of graphic novel, one I hadn't previously heard about but turned out to be very worthy of my time.

Highly recommended!

Seek out good books & enjoy!

~BJ

[Nicholas Knudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish it had been longer, beyond that it was great