Jenny Finn - Review, when Mignola meets Lovecraft

Jenny Finn - Review, when Mignola meets Lovecraft

To merge Mike Mignola, Victorian London and the history of Jack the Ripper, all inserted within aLovecraftian atmosphere, can only generate a mysterious, intriguing and explosive mixture. Jenny Finn it does just that. He deceives the reader through stories and atmospheres that he thinks he knows, but that manage to surprise him just when he thinks he has the mystery at hand. Editorial Cosmo finally proposes us again, many years after his own first released in 1999, Mignola's horror story in a whole new guise, which allows us to re-appreciate this little gem of the genre. The hope of our review by Jenny Finn, then, is also to bring new readers to this incredible author.



Jenny Finn - Review, when Mignola meets Lovecraft

In fact, Mike Mignola certainly needs no introduction: the American artist is known to the general public above all for being the father of Hellboy, but its other productions cannot be ignored, among which they stand out BPRD, Abe Sapien, Lobster Johnson, Witchfinder. Mignola, it cannot be denied, is also a lover of the supernatural, and Jenny Finn was born from this great passion of hers, wisely mixing her gothic and paranormal influences in the creation of a product that is still fresh and current years later. We just have to help you get to know Jenny Finn in this review of ours: a wonderfully terrible mystery, now as then.

 "It's dangerous to go around London alone, Jenny Finn "

The London of the late nineteenth century that Mike Mignola tells us about, was terribly upset. For several weeks, in fact, the pier has been plagued by a double threat: a 'horrible plague is covering the bodies of the inhabitants of the city with terrible tentacles, and if all this were not enough, during the night a homicidal maniac he wanders the streets killing all the defenseless women he meets. Desperate for answers, the Londoners decide to turn directly to the spirits, in the hope of discovering who is hiding behind the mysterious killer. The answer to this intricate mystery will come from a girl born from the sea, who brings one with her terrible curse.



Jenny Finn - Review, when Mignola meets Lovecraft

This is the incipit of Mignola's tale, a tale that transports us to the British capital close to 1900, tinging it with dark, gloomy and distressing atmospheres. The streets of London are more alive than ever, and they give us a gift a glimpse of the darker side of English society: that of the poor, of the workers who break their backs for a few pennies, of the prostitutes who from an early age are sucked into a sad spiral just to put their teeth on a piece of bread. If all these difficulties alone weren't enough to make their lives hell, the simultaneous appearance of a dark disease and a mysterious killer bursts into upsetting the precarious balance of their lives, throwing a dark presence upon them. Why are people turning into monstrous fish? Who is this crafty serial killer that only affects young women? And Jenny Finn, the new whore of the brothel, only appeared by chance in the city around the same time as these two disasters? The mystery deepens page after page, e Mignola's writing succeeds page after page in keeping the reader glued.

A distorted and caricatured trait

Jenny Finn's story may seem very simple, but Mignola's work, together with that of Troy Nixey, Farel Dalrymple and Dave Steward, take the comic to another level by transforming it into a great product; From this point of view, illustrations are fundamental. The tables take us into the story, making us feel the discomfort and disgust of a London torn apart by the wickedness and underworld of its inhabitants. The very faces of the characters, distorted, tired and sick, come to us in the form of disturbing caricatures, which only increase our sense of discomfort, also thanks to the meticulous details in carrying out the different stages of the transformation of people infected with the plague. A painstaking work, embellished by coloring, dreary and alive, which we will be able to admire, in this edition, from the first to the last page.



Jenny Finn - Review, when Mignola meets Lovecraft

There is no room for beauty in Jenny Finn's London. The streets, the characters, the monsters, although different, share the same sad context. That of a world without hope, weighed down by malaise and disease. Each table clearly brings out this immutable status quo, which precipitates suddenly when the two calamities appear. The marked stroke it makes every alley in London dark and evil, making us flinch at every danger that threatens our protagonists. The transformations of the plague, then, they exude Lovecraft with every brushstroke. Underwater terror comes to life on the surface, and sticks to the skin of poor wretches who contract it, spawning monsters made of fins, plankton and scales.


Lovecraft at the bottom of the sea

Jenny Finn is a 'mature, adult work, that demonstrates how American comics is not just made up of superheroes in tights. The story that Mike Mignola tells us can easily fit into the cult of comic horror. A rhythm that starts quietly but becomes more and more frenetic, a mystery that will keep you in suspense until the last page, even when the protagonists and roles are discovered and defined. All seasoned with exceptional tables, perfectly inserted in the context and colored with just the right touch of London gray.


If we really have to look for a flaw in our review, we can highlight it in the lack of insight into the character of Jenny Finn. In fact, the mysterious girl seems almost a secondary character, and only towards the end does she start to be more present in the story. But, perhaps, this lack of characterization was a more than apt choice. Leave Jenny a quick but very strong memory, a mystery that is not solved even when each piece fits in its place. A continuous mystery, which will still accompany us for a long time.

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