“Hinterkind” (Volume 1) is the type of comic that reads like it started as a novel. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just that sometimes a big, wide world that gets introduced in a novel doesn’t seem so mesmerizing when it lands in a comic.
In “Hinterkind,” there’s been a worldwide apocalypse and that triggered the return of the creatures of mythology. With those beasts running around, humanity has been reduced to a few sparse populations. Lead by a girl named Prosper and her friend, Angus, a group sets out to find additional pockets of humanity. What results is a sort of “on the road” story of Prosper’s team as they sneak their way through a world of danger.
This trade paperback includes issues 1 to 6 of the 18-issue Vertigo series by Ian Edginton and Francesco Trifogli. What’s unfortunate is that even with six issues, there just isn’t enough of a story to really hook a reader. That’s also a problem, too.
With six issues, we should be entirely clear on what the book is about, who the threats are and why they’re a threat. But by issue six, we just weren’t able to pull all the pieces together about what this series is really supposed to be about. Yes, it is a post-apocalyptic fantasy story, but beyond that it just seemed rudderless.
That brings us back to the idea that “Hinterkind” offered too much for a comic to handle. We get the idea that every person and place in the story had some sort of helpful backstory that we just didn’t understand. These could have been hinted at in the dialogue or through the images we were provided, but they weren’t apparent enough in this story’s format. The novel version (whether or not it exists), however, may have been able to reveal all those details and help us make sense of the story. In fact, a one or two-page guide per issue may have been enough to pull us fully into the story and make this series a success.
Later issues may have solidified the story, but this volume just seemed too short to sell any reader on investing in the next.
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