Rachel Bellwoar reviews Quilte #1 Halloween ComicFest Edition…
A horrifying new one-shot from the creative team – and taking place in the universe of – And Then Emily Was Gone! Dr. Karla Quite is a revered psychologist who uses her unique psychic gifts to treat patients afflicted with recurring nightmares. But when tasked with helping troubled young Adam Whitlock, her journey into his mind leaves her facing forces far more malevolent than bad dreams!
Written by John Lees, Quilte is an able one shot from ComixTribe, as part of Halloween Comicfest‘s free comics, but I don’t know that it would break through as much as it does without Iain Laurie’s art, whose nightmares are the kind that you want to have up on a poster on your wall. Laurie’s people aren’t sleek and shiny but wrinkled and mottled, with pinched faces and anxious eyes. Colorist, Megan Wilson, has found the pinks of the medicines you hated to swallow as a kid, with the corals, purples and greens of salt water taffy. There’s a sickly hospital vibe that couldn’t be more appropriate for the struggles of Dr. Quilte’s patients, whose dreams have become so intolerable that they dread falling asleep.
Which is where Dr. Quilte, wearer of fabulous plaid pants, comes in. Boasting a singular dream therapy for ridding people of their nightmares, as far as being the only doctor of her kind goes, a lot of her claims have to be taken at face value. This is the issue’s biggest setback. Something feels missing. Living in a post-Inception world, assertions of being ground-breaking aren’t backed up by what we see—your average, run-of-the-mill dream sharing. That Quilte is literally travelling into her patients’ dreams is a science I don’t think has been patented in real life but it has been the subject of sci-fi films and TV shows. By leaving explanations for how Quilte’s technique works unsaid, Quilte avoids getting bogged down by impenetrable dream logic but also limits itself from trying to say something different from those previous efforts. The originality of Laurie’s images can’t be stated enough, for how much they make affairs feel strange (note how the panels change shape, from sharp to goopy, depending on the scene), but it’s a bit of a masking of the truth.
There’s a beauty to the containment of the one shot but it also means there are a few cases of stories being cut off right when they’re about to get rolling, which could be for lack of time or lack of answers. We never get to learn the meaning behind Amanda or Adam’s dreams, and Amanda disappears from the narrative entirely. We miss her, which is no small potatoes, and the ending doesn’t try to square everything up happily. Quilte does a lot right but feels like it’s settling or holding back from being great.
Rating: 8/10
Rachel Bellwoar
Originally published October 31, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
