Industrial Gothic (a review)

You ever open a comic, take one look at the art, and go “hey, I’ve seen this before”? It’s bizarre and frustrating especially when you can’t remember where you’ve seen that style before. Like a lot of comics fans, I tend to rummage through the old discount bins at my local shop and buy cheap books that look interesting. Most of the time it’s crap, but occasionally you find a gem here or there. So, when I came across today’s comic and got that eerie sense of déjà vu, it bugged me for a while until I finally looked up the author.

After a quick scroll through his bibliography, I felt stupid for not recognizing his work sooner.

Industrial Gothic is a five-issue mini-series published by Vertigo in 1995. It was written and illustrated by Ted McKeever who also worked on Batman: Nosferatu and a couple of issues of Doom Patrol. I personally came across his stuff from a two-issue story from the Legends of the Dark Night line called Engines, a criminally underrated story you can find at your local shop for 50₵.

Anyways.

In the world of Industrial Gothic, if you are considered too ugly or different, you are put in a prison far from society. This is where we meet…