Eat The Rich #1
Joey goes to meet her new boyfriend Astor’s family and gets more than she bargained for in Eat The Rich #1, by writer Sarah Gailey, artist Pius Bak, colorist Roman Titov, and letterer Cardinal Rae. This first issue tells a sort of cliche story but does it in a wonderful manner, one that builds anxiety and tension from the very beginning.
The comic starts with Joey and Astor driving to his parent’s beach house for a summer of parties. They’re both nervous for different reasons- she because she’s meeting his very rich family and he because he’s stopped drinking and hasn’t been to these kinds of parties sober. Things intensify from there, as Joey meets his parents, sees the house and has an interesting exchange with Petal, Astor’s youngest brother’s nanny. She goes to the party, and it’s a retirement for one of the wealthy family’s groundskeepers, which turns out to be a roast of the people at the party, each one leaving as a joke is told about them. Joey is warned to leave by one of Astor’s friends and comes upon a chilling scene.
Gailey hits the gas immediately with this one, setting a tone that they play with throughout the issue. Joey and Astor’s anxiety is obvious from the beginning, and Gailey ratchets it up as the book goes on. Without giving too much away, this story isn’t exactly new, and pretty much everyone buying this book can figure out the way it’s going to turn out. What makes this comic work so well is the way Gailey tells it.
They set things up very well. There’s a palpable sense of dread throughout that they set up nicely. The whole vibe from the start is unsettling, and it just keeps building. That’s the key to this whole thing- the way it plays with tone and uses it to tell the story. The reader kind of knows exactly what’s going to happen, but the build-up to it is done amazingly. Every scene keeps it going, and it works wonderfully.
Bak’s art does a great job of playing into Gailey’s script. Bak’s pencils bring the tension to life and really sells the emotion of every scene. There’s something indescribably horrific about the art that plays into the tone. Titov’s colors do an amazing job of bringing the whole thing to life, using the right contrasts of light and darkness to play into the book’s tone.
Eat The Rich #1 is a great first issue. This is horror done right. Gailey masterfully sets the tone of the book right off the bat, and it works great. Bak and Titov’s art fits the script wonderfully. As far as first issues go, this one works very well.
