Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Paul Tobin
Artist: Juan Ferreyra
Editor: Daniel Chabon
Release Date: OUT NOW!
Price: $17.99

Is Nimble Jack the Devil incarnate? A mischievous sprite perhaps sent to temp hapless mortals into dong wrong? Or maybe just a piece of undigested brisket? David Brisson doesn’t know or care, but, demon or digestive eruption, Nimble Jack is going to have a profound effect on David’s life in Colder Vol 3: Toss The Bones.

Having been thrown out by his wife for cheating on her with a barrista, David doesn’t think his life can get any worse. Then he meets Nimble Jack and the pigeons start talking to him. And that is the delicious, deranged opening to Colder Vol. 3: Toss the Bones which collects Colder: Toss The Bones #1 – #5.

David isn’t the main character in Colder Vol 3: Toss The Bones though, we leave him on his park bench and meet the man who is: Declan; who, you might say has a troubled past. Having lost his fingers in a nightmare world where he was told that he used to be some sort of deranged serial killer, he’s peacefully doing some grocery shopping when this pigeon turns up. And you know what that means.

The previous collections in this series; Colder and Colder: The Bad Seed will give you all you need to know about Declan, his ability to heal people and his insane nemesis but the digest version is this: Declan suffers from a strange illness that makes his body temperature drop steadily but surely. There seems to be no cure and, having woken up from a coma, Declan begins a relationship with Reece, the nurse who cared for him. He confides in her that he’s been using his condition to hide from Nimble Jack, a grinning, Joker-esque lookalike who feeds on the minds of the insane. Jack is chasing Declan because he believes that Declan may be his yummiest meal yet!

If insanity was a comic book it would look pretty much like Colder Vol 3: Toss The Bones. Bizarre, unsettling and mesmerising, this is the endgame of an epic masterpiece of storytelling daring to go where other comic books fear to tread. Collect the previous two volumes and indulge yourself in an orgy of insanity, then just hope that, like Star Wars, one trilogy just isn’t enough for Colder Vol 3: Toss The Bones.

 

Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker