‘Living Hell’ TPB (review)

Written and Illustrated by Caitlin Yarsky
Published by Dark Horse Comics

I have always appreciated the artwork of Caitlin Yarsky. The art is always very strong and I enjoyed her storytelling abilities.

Yarksky really showed off her talents in the Black Hammer universe and really made that series and characters seem fresh. The artwork is very appealing and even very charming.

When I saw that Yarsky was drawing AND writing a new book, I got really excited. It was sure to be a comic that I would enjoy.

I wasn’t wrong either, and this is a really enjoyable book, one that proves that Yarsky’s best work may actually be the ones that we have yet to see in the next few years.

Yarsky introduces us to the character of Jerome Jameel.

Jerome is a loving father. Jerome is a wonderful husband. He is even a part time bartender. But we also find out that Jerome is an escaped demon from hell. I enjoyed that automatically we got a character that has a lot of potential to him.

Yarsky takes Jerome and his various traits and runs down the field with it. There are a lot of great little character moments, just in the first chapter alone. Yarsky knows exactly what to do with them, and makes each one unique. It is pretty cool, right from the start.

You see in this universe, hell does exist, but it is looked at as being a sort of prison. A few of the demons have made it back to the physical world and live among the humans. Jerome is one of those demons. He’s just trying to stay out of trouble for many reasons.

One of the biggest ones, is that he has a daughter that he loves and wants to be there for. Jerome is trying to live the good life and he wants all there is to get out of being human while keeping it quiet.

Unfortunately, this isn’t meant to be for Jerome.

He comes across one of the biggest bounty hunter that hell has. This uproots his entire existence in a way that he might not be able to recover from. His life gets completely upended as a result. He eventually has to make a choice to do something to protect his daughter. He becomes a Shepherd, which is one of the worst jobs imaginable. This means we get to see him track down demons. He becomes the very thing that he is initially running from!

The first demons on his list are the crazy Sato Sisters. He has to track them down or his world is coming to an end! It is a hell of a confrontation. Once it is done, you realize that he has to continually do this for even more demons that have escaped. Can Jerome change his circumstances? Or is this what is in store for him for the rest of his life. The situations that follow are horrifying, funny and just the right amount of wacky. I loved where this book went from here.

I can’t really say too much, but Jerome does get blood on his hands. The blood is from someone very close to him. He then has to try to reassess his situation. Even crazier, someone he knows figures out who Jerome really is and what atrocities he is responsible for.

This puts Jerome into quite a predicament. It may be one that he may not survive if he’s not careful.

By the end of the book, all of the various plots and subplots come together in an interesting way. There is an ending of this story for sure. But there is also enough for another chapter of this story to happen, or maybe even more than one. The concept is very strong and the characters are well developed. It wound be interesting for sure.

It seems like Yarsky has more stories that could be done in this world, and they could be fun.

For right now though, this is an interesting and well done book. Caitlin Yarsky does a fantastic job creating this book, especially for her first time out. The writing and the artwork are both great. I enjoyed this very much and hope that she creates more stories in this world.

RATING: B+