Proctor Valley Road
It’s June, 1970, and August, Rylee, Jennie, and Cora are best friends with one goal right now: To see Janis Joplin live in concert. The problem is that they’re all pretty broke right now. So when word starts spreading about supernatural goings on at nearby Proctor Valley Road, August gets the bright idea to offer spook tours of the place for a price. Their first run goes great, right up until the point the boys they’ve brought realize that this is meant to be an actual spook tour and not an excuse to make out. They wander off and after a sudden blackout they’re missing and the girls are back in town. Being the last people who saw three missing boys is bad enough for our female protagonists. Not as bad as being marked for death by the local ghost witch, however.
“Proctor Valley Road” comes to us from the writing team of Grant Morrison and Alex Childs. No points for guessing which half of that team convinced me to pick up this collection. The thing is that I didn’t spot a lot of Morrison’s style in this. There are points where his influence shines clearly – the bit with the two women in the asylum and the Ouija board, as one example – but the story overall lacks the gonzo-yet-grounded craziness that marks his best work. What we have here are a lot of familiar horror tropes packed together with lots of 70’s window dressing, and a bunch of girl power sentiment. There’s enough going on with all of these elements mixing together to ensure that I was never bored while reading this, but I also didn’t feel as engaged as I should’ve been either.
The volume’s saving grace is artist Naomi Franquiz. She draws very emotive and likeable characters, the kind you want to sympathize with in a horror story. Granted, this isn’t a very scary one, but Franquiz draws monsters and otherworldly beings with style. It’s appealing work with appreciable detail and the most consistently enjoyable thing about “Proctor Valley Road.” Hopefully she’ll have better luck illustrating a story that’s worthy of her talents for her next project.