A new big box store called Everything opens in the small town of Holland, Michigan - and it contains everything anyone could possibly want! But strange things have started happening since the grand opening like sudden deaths, mysterious illnesses, and odd music filling the air. What does the new store have to do with them - and what’s their real business…?
Christopher Cantwell and INJ Culbard’s Everything is a fantastic series and I really enjoyed this first volume. It was genuinely one of those books you pick up and have to finish in one sitting to see what happens next.
Cantwell piles on the puzzles expertly and steadily to heighten the tension: starting slow with a couple of bizarre deaths, then throwing in supernatural and plain batty features - talking dolls, laser eyes, a lighthouse, assassins, and a whole bunch more are sprinkled in throughout the story. It’s never boring and I was enthralled the whole time.
The story reminded me of some awesome TV shows like The Prisoner, The Twilight Zone, and Twin Peaks, and, I haven’t read it though I know the premise of Stephen King’s Needful Things and this comic probably has similarities to that novel too. So if those things are your bag too, Everything is definitely worth checking out.
This is one of those books where you can’t talk too much about the details without giving away spoilers and I feel like the less you know about it, the better your reading experience will be, so suffice it to say that Cantwell’s writing is superb, as is Culbard’s art. No idea why it’s set in the 1980s though. Maybe that decade is synonymous with consumerism more than any other? Maybe the ubiquity of the internet would’ve muddied up some aspects of the plot? Maybe simply because the ‘80s is hot right now because of Stranger Things, etc.?
The one let-down is the unsatisfying cliffhanger the book ends on. And I’m worried too because it’s been nearly a year since the last issue came out and I really hope the series isn’t going to be stuck in limbo indefinitely and there will be a conclusion - even if it’s just an issue or two (which is really only all it needs) - rather than leave things there. I would love to see how this series plays out so fingies crossed there’s a Volume 2 in the works!
Anyhoo, if you like stories that are unusual - content-wise that is; this is not some abstract, difficult to follow comic in the least - full of imaginative horror and sci-fi elements, masterfully told, I highly recommend Everything.
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