By Chris Tresson

Welcome to my review of the third issue of John Arcudi and Toni Fejzula’s Dead Inside, out this week from Dark Horse Comics. The last two issue of this series have been pretty interesting but this time around I’m really hoping that the story kicks in a bit more… I need to know what the fuck is going on here. Let’s see what I thought of Dead Inside #3.

Gah, I think I might have hit the wall with this series. It’s not moving forward enough for me each month. Although the story is advancing with each issue (as you’d expect), this damn thing is moving like molasses. It’s interesting still but it really is going slowly, it’s starting to drag and the lack of action and excitement is taking away my ability to enjoy it. John Arcudi is a great writer but this series is really starting to grate on me. It’s just not feeding me enough information with each issue and now that we’re three in, what’s on offer isn’t holding my attention with each issue. Plus, I think the story goes way off in this one into the lives of the characters in the book instead of focusing on the case at hand. I don’t give a shit about their personal lives, I just want to see why the guy got murdered in this series. I don’t need to be involved in their bullshit.

Arcudi’s leaning pretty heavily on those endings of his… They’re comic book click bait. Almost all of the action that happens in this issue (and the last two), happens in the last few pages of the book. Thinking about it more, this series is going to read really fucking weird when it’s collected into a trade.

I have no problem with the art in this series but I’m still watching to see something spectacular from Toni Fejzula. I think he’s being a bit under utilized by this point when the story started out strong but now it’s mostly just people talking… nothing worse than people just talking. Maybe I’m just expecting too much from the story…?

Well, I was disappointed with this one for sure. I thought this was going to be the one where it kicked off royally or at least open itself up a bit more but alas it did not… If you’ve read the previous two issues of Dead Inside, pick this one up and tell me it’s worth holding out for. I’m thinking it isn’t going to get any better at this point and even if I do end up picking up the rest of the series, I will probably wait until there’s a good chunk of it to read and blast through it all at once.

It started out pretty promising but the longer it drags out, the less faith I have in it. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me and my short attention span. I would like to know what you guys think of it, though, so be sure to leave a comment below…

SCORE: 3/5

Dead Inside #3
Writer: John Arcudi
Artist: Toni Fejzula
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics