Review of Pitch Black

The morlocks are real, and some of them are even artistic. The rumors of people living beneath the streets of New York City, well below the subway lines, are true. The morlocks of Cinco Punto press's recent graphic novel release, Pitch Black, may not be as disfigured or scary as those in Wells' The Time Machine, but they are just as forgotten, just as shocking to surface-level sensabilities of class and standards of living, and, in the case of Anthony Horton, just as resourceful.

Horton's resources are his artistic ability and friendly, if sometimes guarded, spirit, and when paired with the talents of Youme Landowne, his story of living on the streets, then underneath them, becomes compelling, and unsettling. Horton seemed to have a doomed life from the start. An unwanted child soon became an invisible youth in a megalopolis where people have to look out for themselves. The social services he found seemed just as dangerous as living alone, and he eventually found himself in the subterrain of the Big Apple. If not for a chance encounter with fellow artist Landowne, his story might never have been told.

As it happened, though, that fated meeting in the subway system produced an intriguing, sometimes stimyying work of sequential art.