Exorsisters #4 // Review
It’s embarrassing to be found selling one’s soul to the devil. The embarrassment only gets worse when the devil turns out to be an angel in a $40 devil costume. Sure it’s complicated, but it’s nothing that paranormal investigators Cate and Kate can’t handle in the fourth installment of Exorsisters. Ian Boothby writes a story alongside the art of Gisèle Lagacé with color by Pete Pantazis.
As the issue opens, angels have fallen from heaven like so many dead pigeons. Kate and Cate investigate. They run into a guy confronting someone in a devil’s costume and things get weird from there. Just as they are trying to help him out, they discover that the devil in question turns out to be one of those fallen angels who had been fortunate enough to land in a dumpster and thus spared their fate: sinking into the earth never to be seen again. When Kate and Cate’s mother slinks into the frame, things get considerably more weird.
Boothby’s clever paranormal sitcom continues to entertain with wit and genuinely funny dialogue. There’s a smart balance between the integrity of the story being told in this single issue and ongoing plot points that have carried over from the first three issues in the series. Cate and Kate continue to be really appealing characters with a complex interaction that amplifies the complexity of the magical world they inhabit. The urban fantasy sitcom is light and crisp with just the right amount of supernatural to give the series its own shadowy corner of the contemporary fantasy genre.
Canadian artist Gisèle Lagacé’s comically expressive art gives the story an Archie-meets-the-Ghostbusters that gains a lot of momentum over the course of an issue. Lagacé delivers comedy to the page with charming sense of humor. The. contrasting expressions and personalities of Cate and Kate come across with a beautiful sense of purpose and personality as the two sisters tread the uneasy supernatural darkness of a contemporary world in perpetual supernatural peril. Pantazis’ color lends texture to faces and backgrounds. The shadows drawn across the faces of characters add much to the emotion that Lagacé is bringing to the page. Pantazi pays a lot more attention to walls in the background than many colorists do. The battered paint texture of Kate and Cate’s office establish an earthy feel for the world of the sisters. Pantazi also has a great sense of radiance in a world of shadow. The light of heaven from an angel really feels like the light of heaven when Pantazi casts it onto the page. It’s a nice touch.
The sisters open the issue in an alley and end it swimming in darkness. Their journey continues. Boothby and Lagacé have something that feels effortlessly unique here. This is a great accomplishment as the urban fantasy genre has been tread quite heavily by pop fiction in recent years. Cate and Kate are a lot of fun to hang out with for 30 pages per month.
