The Whirling Spinner Rack   Review: The Secret By Kevin Agot Published: 2008-01-23

The creepiest, most frightening horror stories are those culled from real life. Dark Horse Publication’s The Secret starts out with teenaged kids at a party who pass around a phone and dial random numbers and tell the recipient on the other end of the line, “I know your secret!” The kids hang up the phone to uproarious, juvenile laughter as the people question who the caller is while everyone at the party listens in on the conversation via speakerphone. However, when one person receives the prank call from Pam (the host of the party), he doesn’t reply, but only breathes into the phone in silence. Then he angrily exclaims, “HOW DO YOU KNOW MY SECRET?” From that point on, the story entirely shifts modes from a festive teen prank, taking twisted, wicked turns into the depths of a dark slice of life that is, unfortunately, all too real.

Mike Richardson does a great job framing this story as a cinematic, paper movie. There are no boxed captions to inform readers of intimate thoughts or named locales. There is only one caption to mark the passage of time in the story. However, Richardson relies on his appropriate and conservative choice of words to progress the story further along. Readers know what’s going on in the story and in the heads of the characters without the usage of captions. This is an understated and more difficult style of writing, in my opinion. If it isn’t done right, the panels could leave one feeling uninformed and the pacing could come across as choppy, forced or disjointed. Fortunately, Richardson is an excellent storyteller, using few words to tell the volumes of horror progressively reaching its crescendo throughout the story and ultimately displayed in the final pages of the book.

Jason Shawn Alexander’s realistic artwork further thrusts the suspense and fear like a stake to the heart, as the characters are illustrated to look like your neighbors’ kids or kids you’d see at any high school today. Alexander expertly captures the subtle nuances of pain and tension as Tommy Morris is wrongly suspected of kidnap and/or murder and deals with the guilt of being the last person to see Pam but also the only person to see the story’s antagonist. We only get small glimpses of this giant, hooded character until the book’s climax. Richardson and Alexander do a great job of dropping crumbs of revelation along a trail of evidence that deliberately reveals who the unnamed antagonist is and the crimes he’s committed.

Richardson and Alexander masterfully fill each page and panel with an uneasy sense of disquiet and anxiety. Even in the safety of apparent resolution, you can never, ever let your guard down. This is a taut, fraught-filled horror story that does not disappoint. The Secret grabs you by the neck and doesn’t let go.