Review: End Over End
"Your convictions will unmake you in the end. They may feel like a strength, but they are, in truth, a burden. One you will hold onto for the rest of your days. And hold on as tight as you like, the burden you carry just spins with you, making your inertia its own, turning you end over end, until there's nothing left but a half-remembered dream."
She is the High Regent of Mytharia, a land that is tearing itself apart around her...
No, she is the captain of a starship 200 light years from Earth, facing a mysterious phenomenon...
No, she is the superheroine Skeletara, battling the evil Crimson Spectre...
No. She is an ordinary woman, facing a very ordinary catastrophe.
End Over End by writer/artist Derrick Freeland is one woman's tortuous journey through a series of fantastical landscapes as she searches for a way out of the nightmares that surround her. Each scenario, each reality is like a layer of confusion. She is at the heart of nested, concentric worlds, like a Russian doll, and must break through barrier after barrier to find her way to freedom.
With each persona she is yoked by a pressing awareness of great responsibilities, yet without clear signs of how to fulfil them. The temptation to run away, to surrender, to give up, is ever present. But to escape one trap is only to fall into another. Waking from one dream to find herself in the next...
Her companion in each new chapter is a horned figure - demon, alien, hero - urging her to do what she truly knows she must. But he is not real. He is just a "remnant" ... but a remnant of what?
This is an engrossing, beautifully illustrated story that follows a pathway through despair towards resolution. The monochrome panels are finely etched with rich detail and sharp linework. The emotional tones bleed off the page, and these are emotions that most people will find familiar.
In the end, this is an existential drama that every one of us has to face. The pain of loss. The hurt of holding on. The agony of letting go...
END OVER END from Bottlecrow Publications
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