“The kids are doing great. They don’t really need us here.”

“Hmmm.”

“You could show them a little warmth. Like you show me. You won’t catch on fire, and it won’t harm them.”

“Hmm.”

“*Sigh* You’re going to do something about that place, aren’t you?”

Marjorie Liu

I’ve been a big fan of Marjorie Liu for a long time, but unfortunately, I haven’t had anything of hers to enjoy in a long time. While her initial comic runs on both X-23 and Astonishing X-Men were great, emotionally packed, and filled with great character beats, I completely missed the boat on her and frequent collaborator, Sana Takeda’s, Monstress. What had a promising start lost me by volume 3, regardless of how many Eisners it won.

And then I came across this. The Night Eaters Vol. 1: She Eats The Night.

Milly and Billy are twins whose parents are Chinese immigrants. Thought they’re doing their best to keep their trendy restaurant afloat during the pandemic (complete with talks of masks and COVID like it’s just started, bringing back horrible memories), they need help. Cue, their parents.

Though their dad is warm and welcoming, with a stern work ethic, their mom is a completely different matter.

What starts as a story of generational differences quickly turns to a night of horror survival, as their mother drags them into an abandoned house across the street to confront some harsh truths and to let them know the world is tough enough as it is.

But it’ll only get harder.

First, the story is solid. It’s tightly written, the twins are hilarious when left to their own devices (which I found funny), and there’s throughline from start to finish that’s easy enough to follow, while also setting up future stories.

The star of this book is Takeda’s pencils. She’s always been incredibly detail oriented, as evidenced by literally ANY page of Monstress. But instead of an ornately decorated dress, it’s monster tentacles and horrified faces.

And then, she’ll turn it right around on the following page, showing a wonderful moment of the past, that eases your heart, right before she brings the horror back. Takeda is an all-star here.

Beautifully haunting stuff. I had the best nightmares after finishing it.

The Night Eaters: She Eats the Night Vol.1 (Barnes & Noble)

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