By Clyde Hall — The joke used to go that death was an acceptable reason for missing work, so long as you gave enough prior notice. Jessica Harrow doesn’t even have that escape clause. Death is her business now that she no longer counts among the living, and business is good in BOOM! Studios’ Grim #1.

In the first issue, we meet a late night traveler with his journey interrupted. What he thought was just a call to AAA turns into an encounter with Death herself, in the form of Jessica. She’s one of the deceased as well, and now has the afterlife job of reaping souls. Actually, Jessica’s not Death per se. Hers isn’t a one-reaper job, either. She’s part of a work force, an afterlife profession fielding many reapers of all shapes and sizes and eras.

But one pilfered scythe later and Jessica, along with some of her grim associates, are scouring the land of the living to reclaim her harvest implement. That’s when things become extremely complicated for Jessica. In death as in life, emergencies never run short on inconvenient entanglements. Jessica’s, though? It’s a journey few have made outside mythology and legend.

The solicit for Grim #1 was interesting and the creative team more than noteworthy. Stephanie Phillips can yarn-spin no end, as readers of her work on Harley Quinn know well. She’s also increased her following with less mainstream titles like Devil Inside and A Man Among Ye. But fictions abound of Death becoming human (Meet Joe Black, Death Takes a Holiday) and a human becoming Death (On a Pale Horse, Dead Like Me). Frankly, the preorder pitch sounded more than familiar.

But the same could be said of BOOM! Studio’s recent successes, Something Is Killing the Children first and foremost. Overtones of an updated Buffy were there, but it quickly established itself far and above such simplistic comparison. Given the chance, Grim may well do the same.

As scripted by Phillips, Jessica’s performance as a reaper follows a certain script. The closer she follows it, the better it suits her. Standard questions from the newly freed souls are tolerated, succinctly answered, or referred to those in charge of the next afterlife phase. Less customary queries are less welcome, and if personal or probing, they’re flatly discouraged.

It’s hard to fault her attitude, described by one character as her ‘hate the world’ outlook. Jessica probably hears the same questions, repeatedly, regarding what comes after death. If Death’s a being overseeing the process or if death’s merely a concept. Why there’s a big queue and a waiting area as the first afterlife destination.

Unlike her companions in the reaper biz, Jessica apparently has one particularly distracting detail regarding her demise, a detail prompting her own questions. The lack of answers on her case of death makes her less tolerant providing answers for others. Phillips succeeds in making our protagonist sulky but entirely relatable, and she provides hints to a larger existence for Jessica with introductions of two reaper friends. They get to call her Jess, they’ve apparently chatted over celebrities living and deceased, and they rally in her moment of need. Even when the afterlife’s frustrating and your circumstances even worse, having friends means still having hope.

Phillips keeps a lid on most details-after-death which, along with a final act development, is good for building interest. One leap of insight by a newly collected soul, however, takes for granted that Jessica, his reaper, is also dead. More specifically, that she once was human, died, and became a reaper. She never tells him this, begging the question why wouldn’t he think of her as a separate kind of entity? A created spirit, a post-life but surly Siri, or an irascible Janet from The Good Place. Perhaps, as a freed soul, he just senses her nature instinctually.

Flaviano brings an ethereal aesthetic to his stylings for issue #1, and even though other artists may provide greater detail per panel, his work doesn’t just catch your eye. It commands your full attention for repeated and prolonged panel study. With unusual poses, with unique POV angles, with tiny exaggerations, and with a radiant flux of smooth moving action, Flaviano infuses the narrative with a larger-than-life essence. Or, in this particular case, a larger-than-death one.

There’s a sundown tone to Rico Renzi’s colors which serves Phillips’ afterlife setting spot-on. It traverses snow-blanketed backroads, Rivers of the Dead crossings, and eventually, wintery cityscapes. In between, Renzi adds brilliance to one afterlife entryway, a heavenly ‘welcome home’ moment which devolves into an automated greeting on a 24-karat turbolift.

Tom Napolitano’s lettering is solid throughout, exemplary in several places. Floating waves of song lyrics, screams of the damned, and the swinging, singing arc of a scythe blade are punctuations putting the panels over with precision. And while his spooky voice font was curious, it was also well-tailored to Jessica’s fashion sense. And her dark and foul mood in the moment.

Yes, the concept is familiar. It’s been done before and done well. But never the way these four talents have envisioned death walking among us, an indolent employee impersonally involved in her work.

Overall: Jessica Harrow’s afterlife and mysterious death pull her into the world of the reapers, though. And in Grim #1, with Phillips, Flaviano, Renzi, and Napolitano serving as our Charons, they ferry us right across with her. 7.5/10

Grim #1

Grim #1
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Flaviano
Colors: Rico Renzi
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Price: $3.99.
Jessica Harrow is dead. But her journey has only just begun!Discover the world of the afterlife, where Jessica has been recruited as a Reaper, tasked with ferrying countless souls to their final destination.But unlike the rest of the Reapers, she has no memory of what killed her and put her into this predicament.In order to unravel the mystery of her own demise, she'll have to solve an even bigger one – where is the actual GRIM REAPER?From acclaimed writer Stephanie Phillips (Harley Quinn) and fan favorite artist Flaviano (New Mutants) comes a bold new vision of what comes after, and the nature of death itself!
Buy It Here: Digital

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Clyde Hall (He/Him) lives in Southern Illinois. He’s an Elder Statesman of Geekery, an indie author, a comics fan/reviewer, and a contributing writer at Stormgate Press. He’s on twitter at: (@CJHall1984)