Vin is down and out, he just lost his apartment due to non-payment of rent and is either going to sponge off friends or live rough on the streets of New York. One night he runs across Reynolds who is apparently in the process of killing some rando with a hammer. But Reynolds can’t be all bad as he does have a dog. Anyways Vin falls into Reynolds clutches but discovered the big dude isn’t killing people, he is killing honking big spiders that infest the city and prey on the downtrodden. Authorities either turn a blind eye or dismiss the growing evidence. Vin is drawn into Reynolds world of giant arachnoid extermination, but is Reynolds exactly who he seems to be?

All Eight Eyes tells its story across four issues containing a total of 120 odd pages, including the odd ring in promoting the next edition. All 120 pages are in full, but somehow subdued colour and will get you grooving to the beat as things progress with our two leads battling a New York giant spider infestation. I’m saying New York here but the comic simply mentions Alphabet City, which I assume is a reference to the big apple. So now we have the framework laid out, lets break down the actual contents of the four issues and see if they are or maybe are not worth your time checking out.

Steve Foxe has a surprisingly deep script happening for what end of day is a giant spider book. We learn Reynolds has things from his past that drive his present, and especially which motivate him to hunt his “great white whale”. There’s a reason for what amounts to an obsession, and to be honest that involves a certain amount of brutality that you don’t normally read about in a horror comic. Similarly, Foxe explores the homeless in New York, has some not so subtle jabs at the gangster youth slumming it till they get bored, and generally dials into the urban decay the city regularly goes through. We also get the uncaring urban developers, who see humans as vermin to be moved aside with profits being their only God. Add in uncaring city authorities, who aren’t going to be believers regardless of what evidence is presented to them and you have a cocktail mix direct from the bowels of hell. There’s a lot happening between the covers of this series and the comics give enough room for everything to breath.

Piotr Kowalski and Brad Simpson capture the script nuisances in their art in solid fashion. Okay we are not talking high art here, no one is going to hang a poster of any of the comic panels on their wall, but the naïve style of art in use is more than ample to keep the reader entertained and up to speed as the narrative unfolds. I was surprised with the colour palette in use, mainly greens and browns, but hey don’t take my word for it I’m colour blind at the best of times. Suffice it to say that the artists are not exploring every shading in the spectrum. While the layouts are used to effectively keep things new and offer enough difference to keep the book humming along, there isn’t thing entirely new and unique to surprise the reader, not that I was expecting anything to go beyond the normal to be honest.

Guess I should return to one of the focuses of the comics, the homeless in decaying New York City. Surprisingly there has been a few outings that also traipses the same fandango, with 1981’s The Wolfen coming straight to mind. The City doesn’t recognise the danger it is in, who cares if homeless people are going missing, till things have got right out of hand and the authorities are forced to the realisation that they might have some major issues. In All Eight Eyes the comic concludes with this knowledge being made public through the news media, so we don’t get the fight back or indeed the seeking to avoid any responsibility for non-action in the actual story but I guess it's coming.

Which I guess asks the question about whether or not we are going to get any further comics in the series, a season two if you like. While the four issues we have are pretty self-contained with zero in the way of script threads left unwoven, there is definitely that open ended feeling that could see a new series set in the same universe hitting stores sometime in the future. A quick check of Dark Horse’s site shows no information about upcoming releases, so guess it may or may not happen depending on how successful the first series turns out to be. 

As soon as I read about the upcoming All Eight Eyes I was definitely wanting to check the book out, hey giant spiders chowing down on NYC, who doesn’t want to read that comic. Finally, I got my grubby mitts on the book and was immediately captured by the script, the artwork, the whole deal. We get character development, Vin going from a drugged out party boy to a defender of the homeless for example, a decent narrative that takes its fantastic elements and drops them into a realistic setting, and a highly entertaining read. Clearly I am going to give a full recommendation to this comic, the book works for comic fans, horror fans, and should seep into the public mind as well. Sourcing the book might be slightly problematic Downunder, it’s not a major title folks, my suggestion is you contact your local specialist shop and let them do the work for you. Go buy the book, you will not be disappointed.