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As to the art, well, once again some really good Nathan Fox artwork, although I must admit on my initial reading of the final instalment, I did have one or two problems with the artwork in places. In places I felt I was getting somewhat confused visually.Whereas in the previous issues, Fox’s meticulous cramming of detail per panel was a delight, in a number of panels here, there is a problem with clarity, a slight difficulty in making out exactly what is going on. It’s partly caused I think by some small panels, and also partly by the way Nathan has rendered the main evil protagonist of the story as their monstrous incarnation.While visually it’s a very interestingly constructed beast, it’s ahem,flaky, wavy,bark-like lineated form doesn’t help in a clear definition at times.Perhaps it’s simply that Nathan is putting so much into each panel(and in doing so, mostly succeeds in creating a very solid, real enviroment in which the story unfolds, making the house as much a character of the story as our female protagonists, and evil beastie), that actually what was a strength becomes a problem.

The other difficulty is that the action in the majority of the pages takes place within a dark, unlit space, so depends on creating that atmosphere through the use of black and essentially very sombre or low-key colours.For the most part I really like how Dave Stewart has coloured the book throughout, though again here, in these paticular sequences within the house, the use of colour creates a certain problem.While I understand the combinations used, and stylistically they do make sense, I think they were too close to each other tonally (For the confused among you, this relates to a sequence of pages coloured mostly using blues greens and purples).What may have been interesting would be to have taken a more expressionist direction, and actually using very heightened colours against sombre ones. Despite my seeming protestations, this is a minor gripe to my enjoyment of this series. And actually, Stewart’s colouring of the final pages here is a very lovely contrast colour-wise, to the mayhem that’s gone before.

So, despite my wittering on about visual and stylistic problems, all in all I recommend you get yourself down to your local comic-geek parlour and purchase Pigeons From Hell before they flee the nest. Hopefully, like that other fab series, The Umbrella Academy, this will see a collected version later in the year.

Paul “Klunk” Brown

And if Mr Brown wants to buy his own copies there is the Trade Paper Back!