Legends of insane killers are a hallmark of horror. People love hearing them and are fascinated by them because every town and city has at least one attached to it. One group of people that’s fascinated by them is young people. That’s why so many comic book writers love using them. One recent example is “The Butcher’s Boy” by Landry Q. Walker and Pannel Vaughn with artist Justin Greenwood.
A group of friends go to a small town where a butcher, after getting lost in the mines for days, comes back insane and starts devouring anything he can get his hands on. The townsfolk bury him and his son in the mines where he spends his days eating his son.
The legend sounds amazing and scary, but the characters are what kill the joy of the story. They’re your typical group of young friends with relationship problems that take center stage in the story. This sort of thing is one horror trope introduced in the 70s and is still alive today to the point where the audience starts taking bets on who’ll how first and how. Another problem with the comic is the fist few pages spoil what happens to them. Whether this is intentional to make the reader want to read on to know what happens or is meant to make the reader think that’s what’ll happen but something else happens is yet to be seen.
The artwork has some amazing panels, especially when the entire panel is red and something scary is happening. On the other hand, most of the artwork is serviceable. There isn’t much that says this art is terrible or great; it’s just mid-level once you think about it.
“The Butcher’s Boy” has a great legend but falls flat due to horror tropes and characters that you want to see die and art that is either amazing or mediocre. It would take something grand to save this comic and so far it’s a dud.
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