I Hate This Place vol. 1

Trudy and Gabby were working crap service jobs in order to barely afford a terrible apartment that didn’t even have proper heating in winter.  Then Gabby gets a letter informing her that her great aunt has died and left the woman a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere.  Feeling like they have nothing to lose, the married couple immediately takes off to start living in this new place.  They soon find out that they’ve got plenty to lose as the ranch is haunted – on the outside by ghosts, and on the inside by a mischievous poltergeist named Bodie.  It’s also a hotspot for UFO sightings and/or abduction.  Oh, and there’s a monstrous entity known as the Horned Man living in the woods outside the ranch.  It all makes the fact that a vicious mob hitman named Frank “Itchy” Redna on the prowl for money stolen in a heist seem quaint by comparison.

“I Hate This Place” comes to us from writer Kyle Starks and artist Artyom Toplin.  It represents something of a departure from what I’ve previously seen from Starks because this is explicitly a horror series as opposed to his previous comedic series like “Assassin Nation” and “6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton.”  There are bits of humor sprinkled through, mostly of the dark and gallows kind, but this is a series about a likeable married couple who find themselves stuck in a setting that could fuel multiple scary movies.  Vol. 1 is all about them getting to grips with this, and seeing Trudy and Gabby learn how to handle this impossible situation provides both thrills and chills.

This is helped in large part by Toplin’s art as he has a gritty style that works well with all of the supernatural goings-on within this story.  Crucially, he also makes the various threats Trudy and Gabby face come off as appropriately creepy, and even horrifying in a few cases.  He’s also good at making the central couple look like they really love and appreciate each other, which really makes you want to see them live through this experience.  Which will continue as “I Hate This Place” will be getting a second volume.  That’s good news both for the great first impression this volume makes, and for the near-and-long-term setup for future stories included here as well.