Review: Revival, Vol. 3: A Faraway Place

Revival, Vol. 3: A Faraway Place by Tim Seeley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Volume 3 of Tim Seeley and Mike Norton's rural noir continues the high quality of the earlier volumes and pushing the story in interesting directions.

After the explosive violence of the last issue, Em and Dana are forced into an uneasy truce, although both continue to hide secrets from the other. Em refuses to help Dana solve the mystery of Em's death, and Dana is starting to close in on her prime suspect. Meanwhile, tensions continue to mount as the quarantine drags on and the farmers have their livestock taken from them for testing. On top of all that, there are finally some clues as to the nature of the ghosts/visitors that wander the areas outside of town.

There's a lot going on in this volume, but that's not a bad thing. There's always a danger in serialized works that things will drag on too long and that the answers never really come. Seeley does a great job providing some answers (or at least hinting at some of them) while providing even more questions to press the story forward. The book provides satisfying plot progression on both of the main plots--who killed Em? What's the deal with everyone coming back from the dead?--even though that progression mostly serves to create more questions.

There's not much to say about the artwork that I haven't said already; Norton's art is a pleasure. I particularly enjoy the range of expressions he's able to give different characters. All of them have distinct appearances and express a full range of emotions. Excellent work.

While there's always the threat that a serialized work will stagnate and tread water, it's refreshing to see that Seeley and Norton have avoided that pitfall so far. If you enjoyed the first two volumes, I can't imagine anything that would prevent you from enjoying this one.

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