Freaks of the Heartland

Under the weathered skies of America's heartland, and in the wounded hearts of every family in one tiny rural town, a terrible secret has been kept for too many years. Now, a young boy named Trevor must try to keep his younger brother Will from falling victim to the worst fears of a troubled town that can't begin to understand the tragic secret that binds its families together. Some folks would call Trevor's brother a monster. But to Trevor, Will is just another kid trapped in a dark reality he can't comprehend. When the situation moves from bad to worse, and their father threatens to do away with Will, Trevor learns that they're not alone - that "freak" children were born to other families in Gristlewood Valley. Against all odds, and with nothing but love for his brother in his heart, Trevor is going to do whatever he can to get the freak children out of harm's way, if it's not already too late.

From Booklist

Niles, a prolific writer of all shades of horror script, grisly to guffaw inducing, for several comics publishers, here offers an underdeveloped variation on John Wyndham's sf classic The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), in which mutant children are born simultaneously to a community's women, and it compounds failing to explain the basic situation with dialogue written in Beverly Hillbillies patois. All Niles gives artist Ruth to work with is an escape-and-chase scenario as one boy, after preventing Dad from shooting his monstrous brother, rounds up the other mutants and leads them in an attempted breakout from their home valley. Fortunately, Ruth rises to and exceeds the occasion. Working in pen and ink and watercolor, and limiting his palette to black, white, and sepia that he expressively alters with varying admixtures of yellow and red, Ruth creates one knockout panel after another. The night settings of many scenes allow Rembrandtesque lighting effects that Ruth exploits in tandem with the narrow range of color to deepen characterizations beyond anything Niles has written. A triumph of presentation over (lack of) substance. Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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