Everything vol. 1: Grand Opening
I’ve liked what I’ve read from writer Christopher Cantwell so far. The thing is that what he’s written so far has been defined by a fairly aggressive strand of quirkiness. He loved piling it on over the two volumes of “She Could Fly,” which would’ve suffocated under it without the strong characterizations the writer afforded its cast. His current “Doctor Doom” series is also a strange duck in the way it takes the Latverian monarch, strips him of his title, hits him with visions of a better life, has him bouncing off a time-traveling Kang, and threw in H.E.R.B.I.E. in there for good measure. With his new series “Everything,” Cantwell decides to dial the quirk back quite a bit. It’s still there, of course, but it’s here in a more subdued and accessible way.
More sinister, too. That’s because “Everything” is about Everything, the new department store that has… Well, you know. Not really a mall, it’s more like a Fedco (Anyone remember Fedco? Anyone?) where you could get anything you wanted from video games, to gardening tools, to electronics, to groceries, and more. It’s all overseen by store manager Shirley and its grand opening in the town of Holland, Michigan widely viewed by almost everyone as the best thing to happen to it since ever.
That “almost everyone” refers to a select few townspeople who don’t immediately fall under Everything’s spell. There’s former EMT-turned mortgage consultant Lori who spends her days in a vodka haze. Conspiracy-minded audio enthusiast Rick believes that the new store is the reason all the speakers in his shop sound like crap now. City Manager Eberhard finds multiple things going wrong with his life, from his daughters becoming ill, to an ant invasion of his home, and a recurring case of nocturnal emissions. Then there’s the postman who’s investigating the store on his own, because this isn’t his first encounter with Everything.
If this sounds like an odd group of characters to oppose the threat presented by the titular store, the series has more strangeness to offer still. Hallucinogenic paint chips. Talking children’s toys with compassion. A moment full of pink confetti in the store. Spontaneous combustion! The kind of quirky touches one would expect to see from Cantwell’s limited canon at this point.
The difference compared to his previous works is that it doesn’t feel like they’re here simply for the sake of quirkiness. Cantwell and artist I.N.J. Culbard work from the start to cultivate an air of low-key menace in the series. It’s immediately clear that something’s wrong with Everything’s arrival in the town of Holland, but you can’t put your finger on exactly why that’s the case. What makes the aforementioned touches work is that this time it feels like they’re feeding into the overall mood and tone of the story. As opposed to, maybe, more often than not feeling like they’re present simply for the sake of grabbing your attention.
As to whether the story they’re a part of is worth following, that’s a different question. I felt that Cantwell and Culbard’s approach drew me in. Particularly after we started getting specifics regarding the nature of Everything’s weirdness. There are still questions to be had about its purpose and how it does what it does, but the store doesn’t end the volume as the unknowable mystery it starts out as. It also helps that the character arcs are pretty involving so far. Lori’s is chief among them as hers takes quite a turn after she starts off as a kind of sad-sack reluctant hero. Eberhard’s takes a strange, disquieting turn towards tragedy, while Shirley’s also goes down an unexpected path as she begins to question what she was made for.
All of this is well and good for people who can appreciate a narrative with a good slow burn. Those of you not in the mood for a puzzle box without a lot of flash may not warm to this in the way that I did. Especially when you consider that vol. 1 is only half of “Everything’s” story. Rather than serialize it as one ten-issue maxiseries, Dark Horse is serializing this as two five-issue miniseries. While I’m sure this helps ensure we get the full story, as I’m sure any sales of this volume will help fund the next miniseries, vol. 1 doesn’t even pretend to stop at a convenient point.
Less of an issue is the art from Culbard. He’s got a clean, steady style that’s good for projecting a normal exterior. However, Culbard is also an artist who (with Dan Abnett) gave us “The New Deadwardians” and “Wild’s End,” and managed a couple of Lovecraft adaptations on his own. So he also knows how to bend the normalcy of his style in ways that suggest creepiness if not outright horror. This is all to say that he’s an excellent fit for the kind of story being told here as he makes scenes like a public gathering in front of the store, or a town parade in its honor, or Lori tripping the light fantastic on paint chips, or the strange underground headquarters of Everything all look like they belong in the same comic.
Is it ironic that the comic “Everything,” which is about a story that offers everything to everyone, may not find a wide readership itself? While I think the first volume is a worthy read in that it successfully tells the story it sets out to, it does so in a way that caters more to the strange than anything else. That is to say that it doesn’t have the same kind of accessible vibe that most other mainstream comics do, but that’s not necessarily a negative. The kind of weirdness this story offers isn’t the off-putting indigestible kind. “Everything” offers the good kind of weirdness, and quirkiness, that make for a memorable read. In my opinion, at least.