Calum Petrie reviews The Red Mother #11…
Daisy has been manipulated, mentally tortured and brought to the brink several times, and now we are starting to see what it was all for. Since issue #1 there have been ups and down for this series for me as a reader. The series has always had a consistent slow build up on its pacing, and the pay off has not always been clear, but as each issue has progressed we have uncovered more hints at how large the conspiracy grows.
In the last issue we realised that even the most trusted of confidants have been lying to Daisy, and there is genuinely nobody left to trust. The clever parts of this series have been moving the character away from her safety net and into a different country. This move has left the character with no places to go as the people behind the curtain now control everyone who Daisy comes into contact with. The thought of that alone genuinely is terrifying.
The further down the rabbit hole we go with this series once again proves that the greatest horror is not the gore/slasher type setting, but instead the thriller. Alfred Hitchcock made some of his most acclaimed movies as slow tension building films, where the viewer’s mind does more work to create atmosphere than the visuals it is given. This is very true of The Red Mother as well.
Daisy in this issue alone has now made her way behind the curtain, and realised all that is now going on. She didn’t escape her past in America, she was instead brought to England to be thrust infinitely deeper into it, all without her realising. The weight of her situation has become so overwhelming it will be interesting to see what the eventual pay off is actually going to be. I have been gripped again by this series and I wait patiently for the outcome to be brought to light.
It would not be fair to finish this review without also going deeper into the beautiful artwork in this series. The characters are drawn in an extremely charming style, while the attention to detail in the backgrounds is incredible. It is easy to be so focused on a certain point in a panel that you do not realise the rest of the setting around them. Danny Luckert has crafted these locations in a wonderful and understated manner, creating a fully inhabited world beyond the main story.
Rating: 8/10
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