A review by readthesparrow
It Took Luke by Mark Bouchard

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Before I break down my thoughts on It Took Luke, I just want to say: wow. I went in not knowing what to expect and I was blown away by what I was met with. Honestly, if the summary sounds interesting to you, I would just tell you to go get your hands on a copy right now. (I have links to their websites at the end of the review.) It is one of the best graphic novellas I have ever read.

The art is black, white, and red. This is a color palette I love, especially in horror with a lot of blood and gore. It works really well in It Took Luke; while the art would certainly be good in just black and white, the addition of red goes a long way towards making it pop. It just adds a certain je ne sais quoi. 

The character design is excellent. Maybe I’m biased because so many of the designs use elements I love (Molly is a tall, buff lady with a giant hammer. How am I supposed to not love her?) but they are all really well done. I believe part of the character’s charm comes from what an excellent job the artist, Bill Underwood, did with the character’s expressions and mannerisms. They all come across as realistic; the kinds of people whose main worries aren’t about the monster they’re about to face today but about their kids, their insurance, their ex. I fell in love with each and every one of them. Good characters are the most important thing for any story, and even though It Took Luke had only 90 pages, it did an excellent job of developing its characters in that limited space.

I have only one issue with It Took Luke: the use of the trope of the monster disguised as something harmless (a la the husky in The Thing or the puppies in Getter Robo Armageddon) though in this case it is a child, not a dog. This is a bit confusing to me, as this seems to break the rules of The Shopper as portrayed throughout the rest of the story. The Shopper isn’t like the Thing; it doesn’t spread like a virus, it accrues. Even the seemingly singular scientist Sal fights in the garden area is connected to the main body via a tentacle. The dog things the team fights shortly after don’t seem to be connected to or incorporated by the Shopper (probably unrelated test subjects). None of the other people who have been taken by the Shopper stay silent like the child does—they all speak constantly up until they are damaged enough to die. There are so many questions—why is there a child in the facility in the first place? It’s a research facility handling dangerous creatures. Why doesn’t the team question the child’s presence? While they are under a lot of pressure, with two teammates injured, it’s a strange enough thing that I wondered why not even Molly—who is uninjured and experienced—questions why there would be an uninjured child in the middle of a dangerous animal enclosure located in the heart of a research facility.


Thinking on it, there are some theories I have about why the child was there. Perhaps it was placed there by the Shopper—after all, the scientist Sal fights was messing with the keypad to the enclosure before they stumbled across it—and it is the offspring of the Shopper constructed in the shape of a child as another vector of infection. Still, though, the twist that the child was not a child at all was something obvious from the second Molly picked it up. It does work, I think, but it was so obvious coming that the reveal wasn’t surprising at all, lessening the impact.


While It Took Luke is an excellent package in and of itself, it is a special kind of story where the characters, world, and art work so well together that to have it only be a single 90-page graphic novel is a real shame. In the limited space given the world and character building were so expertly done that I do really want to see more of the characters and follow their journey as they struggle with horrors familiar (dead-end jobs, personal relationships, capitalism) and unfamiliar (horrible religious flesh beasts).
The ending is very open and can be interpreted multiple ways, however, meaning that there is room for more.
In a perfect world, It Took Luke will get the opportunity for a sequel or become a series. Even if it does not, though, this graphic novella does a perfect job of standing by itself. I hope to see more from Bouchard in the future!
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