Dark Corridor #1 Review

Writer: Rich Tommaso / Artist: Rich Tommaso / Image Comics Dark Corridor is a new series from Image written and drawn by Rich Tommaso. Unlike regular ongoing series, this one’s intended to have several different stories under the “umbrella” title, like a crime version of when you watched Tales from the Crypt as a kid. At least I think that’s how it’s supposed to work – it’s somewhat unclear how the series will look down the line, but we do know that it evolved from two older comic scripts from 2007-2008 until it took the form we now have in our hands. How did it turn out? In terms of storytelling, Dark Corridor #1 found its footing and got intriguing after a slow start. I found myself feeling somewhat ambivalent about the start of the series, not because of the story itself, but because I don’t very much care about the protagonist. At least not yet, I don’t. The story uses one of the fundamental strategies to make a character likeable – in this case, rescuing a dog – but our character has a ways to go. Who did catch my attention though is the dog’s actual owner, introduced towards the end of the issue. And with that, the story has some legs.

One gripe I had came during the opening pages, and was rather minor, but still a pet peeve worth mention. Where comics should tell their stories through two angles – one through words and another through its artwork – Dark Corridor did fall into the mistake of redundancy. One example is a panel showing a dog covered in blood. “You’re cov…