Gravel #1(2008).
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Mania Grade: A-
Title: Gravel
Issue: 1
Authors: Warren Ellis, Mike Wolfer, Raulo Caceras
Publisher: Avatar
Price: $3.99

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GRAVEL #1

With this first issue of Gravel, Warren Ellis and co-writer Mike Wolfer continues the adventures of his eponymous occult solder – hero of Strange Kiss and its sequels. After some particularly nasty black ops business in Afghanistan, the occult community in Britain has presumed William Gravel dead. They’ve even given his position in the Minor Seven – a league of occult detectives – to the foppish Simon Shiranian, who bartered the six pieces of the sacred Sigsand Manuscript to the remaining members for Gravel’s seat. Needless to say, Gravel is not pleased. Having dispatched Shiranian and taken his ringed finger for evidence in the last issue, he’s arrived in Langton Green – a small village where young girls have disappeared with alarming regularity and the birds seem to keep dying. Poison of more than the chemical sort has infected the place on every level conceivable. Gravel thinks one man may know why – Jerome de Montfault, one of the remaining members of the Minor Seven.

I’ve yet to read Strange Kiss or any of its follow-ups, but if Gravel provides any indication, I probably should. I can best surmise the character as a combination of James Bond and John Constantine, with a nasty edge. And, like Hellblazer, Ellis and Wolfer freely craft their own occult universe – equal parts H.P. Lovecraft and good old fashioned black magic. And, with Gravel’s background in the British Special Air Service, he comes with an action-hero edge absent even from Constantine at his most violent. This issue starts out with an intriguing, yet familiar mystery – that of a “bad place” – but resolves it all too quickly. That’s the issue’s single shortcoming. Though Gravel will undoubtedly deal with the rest of the Minor Seven and their respective fragments of the Sigsand Manuscript in the coming issues, Ellis and Wolfer write the encounter with de Montfault as a done-in-one. That’s disappointing, considering the enticing set-up. But, we can take solace in the future issues of the series, if it stays on schedule. 

Regardless, this issue of Gravel is a pleasure to read. Raulo Caceres provides some fantastically detailed interior art, bringing both the subtle pleasures of a crowded occult library and the gruesome weirdness of a tentacled Lovecraftian nightmare with multiple breasts. This one’s not for the kids, but pick it up and enjoy.

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