Death Vigil #5

By Stjepan Sejic

How do you begin to explain Stjepan Sejic’s Death Vigil? For a few reviews (#1, #2, #4) now it seems like the correct words to describe this series just aren’t there. If you’ll notice, all three reviews—yes, we missed #3, sorry about that—have been given five stars and if you look just above the “by” line, you’ll notice that we’ve done it again. How do you describe this series and a talent like Stjepan Sejic? Should we use Croatian to describe it? Briljantan! Nevjerojatan! Lijep! Well, at least the words are different than the ones you’ve probably seen here time and time again, right?

Sejic’s writing is brilliant; it has humor, impact, depth, intrigue, heart and a bunch more adjectives that, if listed here, might make this more of a lesson on adjectives than a discussion on this book. Sejic explores the back-story of a few of the more interesting characters and based on their history, one can’t help but wonder, how much of this Sejic has written out somewhere. It seems like this is a series that he could tell from any period in history and it’d still be amazing. This issue of Death Vigil also opened up the fact that other countries have their own Vigil, with their own unique abilities. Anybody else foresee a huge, crazy brawl with all the Vigil in the future? This reviewer, for one, sure hopes so.

The art is incredible; it can be subtle, it can be immensely detailed and intense and everything, right down to those crazy speech bubbles is designed and planned out masterfully. The monsters are insane and terrifying. Just take a moment to process The Abyss; that thing is literally the stuff nightmares are made of, on a page and in a comic. But it’s so damn cool you just can’t stop looking at it and pouring over all the little details Sejic has put into, really, a scene that is just two characters talking.

In case you missed it, two of the Croatian words above started the last two paragraphs—fingers crossed, Google translate—and since the last one doesn’t quite fit into this one, let’s just reiterate that Death Vigil really, truly is brilliant, incredible, and masterful. It’s one of those series that needs more attention while, at the same time it’s nice to be one of a select group that have picked this up and given it a chance because, jokes on you, you’re missing out.

Oh, and in case you  haven’t heard. It’s been announced that we’re looking at more than just this first 8-issue arc.

@Shou_Kobayashi it will be three arcs, 8 issues each plus a few one to 3 shots exploring some of the characters specific pasts 🙂

— stjepan sejic (@stjepansejic) November 12, 2014