Soon, Image Comics will be introducing readers to the world of Si Spurrier and Vanesa Del Rey’s The Voice Said Kill, a new series that feels like a collision of Fargo and Deliverance. Taking place in the Louisiana bayou, a pregnant park ranger, a criminal matriarch, and a shrooms-loaded hunter will find themselves all in each other’s immediate orbit, and it’s going to be absolute chaos. ComicBook has your exclusive first look at the anticipated new series thanks to a new preview, but it gets even better, as we’ve also got special commentary on each part of that preview from Spurrier and Del Rey, and you can check out the full preview and breakdown of The Voice Said Kill #1 below.
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Let’s start with The Voice Said Kill #1 page 13, which depicts a key conversation between two mothers who would go to any lengths to protect their children. Neither one likes the other, and things will spiral between them later on, but at this point, things haven’t flown off the handle just yet.
“A conversational moment during issue 1. I love the way the smoke leads the eye across the page, dividing these two women from each other. In this scene we’re beginning to understand the stakes our leading ladies share. They couldn’t be more different, and yet they’re both mothers. They would do anything – anything – to protect their children, and although they despise each other they find a perilous common ground in that simple, savage maternal determination,” Spurrier said.
“This is one of the moments when Vanesa’s art becomes almost impressionistic, dreamlike, breaking down into cleverly arranged lines that imply the idea of an expression, the sensation of a person, rather than slavishly rendering everything in tedious realism. When things get nasty a couple pages after this, you better believe the detail ramps up and the room gets real claustrophobic real fast,” Spurrier said.
Next, let’s take a look at page 28, which carries you effortlessly into the city and makes you feel as if you’re staring at the skyline from a nearby window. The immersiveness on display is impressive, and while the page is silent, it still says a lot for those paying attention.
“And here’s a silent page. So still and sultry. You can feel the stickiness of the air. The crickets tzz-tzz-ing in the long grass. This sleepy bayou town, crumbling and defeated, still bearing the signs of Katrina’s violence. So much of our story is about the human (specifically white American) arrogance of that old mythology: we can tame the wild. Spend any time in the bayou and you know what a load of shit that is. You can trick yourself, you can make your mark on the borders of the wilderness, but you know – deep down: the tide will rise. The moss will grow. The storms will come. A week, a month, a year: you were never here. Our heroine Marie understands this better than anyone. So when we crash-cut to her, puking her guts out, the only thing that feels alive and vibrant and painful in this tired old town, we know: this is big,” Spurrier said.
We also have the new Cover B variant for The Voice Said Kill #4, which was created by the talented Emma Price. “One final treat. Attached is the variant cover for issue #4 – as yet unseen. This is by our series designer, the multi-talented Emma Price, who has an uncanny knack for arresting images that make you stop, double-take and investigate. (Her work puts me in mind of Mike Del Mundo, which is no small compliment.) Designers are rightly becoming more visible as key elements of the collaborative team, and when one of them turns out to be a damn fine illustrator too, it’s nice to be able to give her a platform,” Spurrier said.
Vanesa Del Rey said, “The story involves psychedelics. I was inspired by actually taking psychedelics myself. The things I’ve seen in the sessions… The abstraction of the hanging trees, the moss, the patterns on the leaves and flowers remind me of fractals I’ve seen when I’ve taken psychedelics. The fact that it is set in an estuary ecosystem was part of that too. It makes the swamps kind of like an in-between place…and psychedelics take you outside of your body to sort of an in-between state. And in a way being pregnant does that too!”
The Voice Said Kill #1 will hit comic stores on July 23rd, and you can check out the official description below.
“Fargo meets Deliverance in a sweaty swamp-thriller from VANESA DEL REY (Black Widow, The Creeping Below) and SI SPURRIER (Coda, X-Men). The wet heat of the Louisiana bayou. Alligator poachers prowl the mudbug mire. A park ranger, heavily pregnant, raises a hateful mug of moonshine with a criminal matriarch. And one deadly sonuvabitch, out of his mind on shrooms and retribution, loads his rifle for the Human Hunt and screams down the stars. Presenting 4 extra-length issues of fever-dream cajun crime.”
Are you excited for the new series? Let us know in the comments, and you can talk all things comics with me on Bluesky @knightofoa!
