Reading – Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah
Boom Studios (website, Twitter) deserves my thanks. You see, back in 1999 I bought Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah, a comic mini-series by Mike Mignola and Troy Nixey. At least, I tried to but only two issues were released and the comic kinda died unfinished. Which seriously sucked, because the Victorian horror had fantastic B&W artwork by Nixey and a strange, unusual story that was going . . . well, I couldn’t really tell you where the story was going. It was pretty weird.
Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah* collects those first two issues and finishes it out with artwork by both Troy Nixey and Farel Dalrymple. I was astounded when I ran across the collection — I thought for sure this story was set to never be finished — but even in my surprised state I immediately grabbed the book and rushed home to read it. Unfortunately Nixey didn’t finish the story, and while Dalrymple does a decent enough job of mimicking Nixey’s style it’s not a perfect match and the shift in artists damages the book. Doesn’t destroy it, but it does drop it down a notch or two on my “this is so cool” meter.
Fish, tentacled monsters, prostitutes, steampunkery, and several dead people populate the book — well, the dead people aren’t exactly populating anything — and it’s tough to say much about the story without giving away the fun, but I think it’s safe to say that fans of Mignola’s work and steampunk horror will find this worth investigating. It’s not at all a perfect tale, but I’m happy that it was finally completed . . . even if it’s printed at a smaller size than the original comics. I do dislike when comics are reduced in size; please, publishers, print collections at the same size as the original issues were published.
Closing Thoughts
While not nearly as good as Mignola’s Hellboy work, Jenny Finn is imaginative and weird. Nixey’s artwork is fantastic — I recommend Only the End of the World Again* for an even better example of Nixey’s comic artwork — and the addition of Mignola’s covers (reprinted in B&W in the book) makes this a top notch artistic effort.
I’ll reread this in the future, but not often.