In many ways, volume three of The Nightmare Brigade: Finding Alice is both my least due to changes happening to the characters and some of the new characters added are not “fleshed out” enough (hopefully that is a “yet”). However, it is also a favorite due to getting the bigger picture we had had established in the first two volumes by Franck Thillez.
This time, even though we have entered the nightmares of others, this time it feels heavier on the fantasy and science elements. We are delving into the possibilities of what the Nightmare Brigade (three children who call the professor father, though only one is his biological son) can do. This time, the Brigade goes into the memories of a new friend. Wondering why her reactions to firecrackers and lightning bring on a PTSD like panic, we find that the past might be closer than we think.
The changes of the characters are both positives and negatives. We see some growth to them, but we also find out that not all bad guys were black hats, carry guns/other weapons, and sneak around in the dark. The positive of that is we are getting deeper into a phycology, but the negative is that these new twists, turns, and personality additions drags the story out.
Yomgui Dumont created some downright spooky, mesmerizing, and creative images. The illustrations sometimes are there only to hold the text/story and other times they add to it. They can be a new character, but mostly there as the holding place for the main themed people. I did have the question of if one of the characters had gotten “taller” or had a “look change” due to showing of time going by or a change in the artist and/or style of work.
