Coffin Hill

The name of the series was actually… bad. I mean seriously bad. Or wait, it wasn’t the series itself but the family name of the main character. And it makes you question “what the heck” when you first start reading it and all through reading it. It’s one of those things that really gets stuck in your craw and it shouldn’t be as big a deal as it is. But for me, it stuck with me. I am still dealing with it now. I have huge emotional scars.

I did it again didn’t I?

I opened with something that makes absolutely no sense till you get further down the page. I either leave you thinking I’m a moron and don’t know what I’m doing or maybe I get you reading further just to find out what it is I’m talking about. Which is where we will be going right now.

I’m talking about the series Coffin Hill (Vertigo, 2013-2015). And if you haven’t figured it out, it’s all in that name. See, the series takes its name for haunted woods; woods that are haunted by the Coffin Witch. Coffin is the family name. The main character is Eve Coffin, a witch in a long line of witches. Yeah… it bothers me too.

But let’s step aside of that for a minute or two and maybe dig a bit deeper into the story. This is a bit of a horror comic and at times can be a bit gruesome. Throughout the series we are spending time in the past as well as the present, digging deeper into the mystery of the ultimate story arch. And most of the time you don’t even realize this is going on till you have reached close to the end of the series. Everything has built up to a final confrontation between Eve and the original witch of the family.

It’s all done in such a way that you forget about the horrible naming choice until it assaults you again within the story. We have a built in sucker punch to annoy us while still finding the sweetness of the story to keep us coming back for more.

Anyway, the use of flash back throughout the story line helps the final arc of the story unfold. I’m sitting here wondering if I should divulge that arc or should I let you find it on your own. Let me see if I can dig through some of the information without giving too much away about the happenings.

It all comes back to the name thing. We have one group with a horrible name that have been a part of the town for ages. And then we have all these other families that are also tied to the beginning of the town. It all interrelates. Through it all there are murders and possessions and people just dying in all manner of gruesome ways. And it all comes back to the names. Which of course makes no sense unless you read the stories. Wow…

To lay out some of it a bit, we have Eve who is part of the coffin family. This family has ties to the legend of the coffin witch. The coffin witch legend goes well back in time to the story of a girl who murdered her family and was then killed by the town for her crimes. Yeah, so much simpler than it would seem from my original stumbling with it all. I blame the name thing…

After all that, I guess it comes down to this, I really liked this one. It’s one you have to read the entire series to absorb the full impact of the underlying story arc. And once you have gotten to that point, it all pretty much unpacks in your mind and ties itself in knots around your psyche. Of course, you will find yourself really hating the name though.

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If you enjoy these stories, consider leaving some coffee money in the jar or you could buy a book or two. Either way helps keep the stories flowing.