Writer, Creator, Letterer Joseph Duis
Interior Line Art Jose Raul Orte Crespo
Cover Line Art Greg Woronchak
Interior and Cover Colorist Maulana Faris
I’m not usually into horror and I think I figured out what it is about horror comics that I’m not into, it’s the same as movies, the jump scare tactics and low production value. What it is about horror that I do appreciate is psychological horror. I like when a writer takes an idea and wraps it in a psychological journey that has a bit of an edge to it. It’s fun sometimes to look at scary character design but the idea of slowly losing sanity is much more scary than a non existent monster. Going crazy and losing senility is a real thing. It’s ever present and anyone that has an aging parent or grandparent it’s a very scary thought. The idea behind Doctor Orange is centered around a woman that carves a pumpkin for halloween. Clearly it gets a little more complicated as the psychological journey begins, but the journey is what really makes the story, so I can’t spoil much for any potential readers, but I can say for sure that the idea behind Doctor Orange as a character is the driving force. The writing is a great example of how to form a comic out of a concept. I can see a clear concept and it follows the idea until the big reveal, I wouldn’t call it formulaic but it followed the idea step by step until the end and it was done in a way that was fun and not overly reaching for horror shock value. Overall the idea behind Doctor Orange is really nothing without the execution of the writing and the pulling together of the idea and the art.
The Doctor Orange art is very serviceable as a conduit for the story and the character design is what it’s really centered around. All of the art is consistent and the backgrounds are nice and detailed, especially in the panels where the characters are outside. A lot of the panels are fairly simple, a pill bottle that leads to another panel of a character taking a pill, but it all flows really well and as I said it services the story. One subtle thing that may or may not have been planned was the halloween themed color pallet. The colors are perfect for the content of the comic and they really capture the halloween vibe. I feel like the art and the story are intertwined in more than just the fact that their the same comic, it’s clear that the effort was put into the production, and clearly the idea was put together as a team, and that speaks to quality as a product.
If Doctor Orange sounds like something you might be interested in you can catch it and many other oneshot titles from Heresy Studios on their website.
