Scott Morse is a deeply under-appreciated talent. I came to this conclusion after the comics market basically ignored his lush and intriguing Elektra: Glimpse and Echo, and it's reinforced every time I see one of his previously hard-to-find works. But for those of you lucky enough to have discovered Morse, and probably devoured his in-print work as eagerly as I have, you owe Oni another debt of gratitude as they have reprinted Visitations, and it turns out that it is as engaging as I found his work on Littlegreyman, Soulwind and Ancient Joe. Those of you who haven't discovered Morse's talent up to this point... well, Visitations is $8.95 for a well-illustrated, entertainingly told and haunting story that will introduce you to it.
Visitations is a musing on faith, and I think what strikes me most about this is that it's not just about religious faith. It's about faith in things beyond what we can see, and while I often have no use for the tenets of religion, the notion of faith in something larger is something I can get behind. Especially when the focus is less on saying "See, this is what you should believe!" and more on exploring the hows and whys people do or don't. The central story and framing device is about a disillusioned woman wandering into a church on Tuesday and finding a kindly (but firm) man of the cloth intent on proving to her that God exists by using three random stories from the newspaper.
Using this framing device allows Morse to tell three very different stories that all tie neatly into one overarching theme. There's a nice shift in his artwork from the pencil and ink look of the framing sequence to the more painted appearance of the stories that helps to set them apart, but really it's easy to get the shift anyway, thanks to the changes in tone and detail. All three stories (and indeed, even the fourth) hinge on a surprise ending and on a bit of darkness in the world, and I'm happy to say that I really didn't see most of them coming and was actually taken aback by the surprise to be found in the third one.
Each story features strong characterization and clever dialogue, instantly establishing the characters as believable and interesting. The interaction between the waitress and her patron features some especially sparkling little bon mots about the nature of waiting tables and hoping for tips, although the development of both the old man in story two and the young boy in story three is crucial to the eventual punchline, and both work out very well. One of the points that Morse seems to make is that darkness can be found even in the hearts of the seemingly kindest of people, and also that familiar saying that "God works in mysterious ways." Or fate, if your particular religious leaning is that way, since Morse goes out of his way not to spell anything out one way or the other.
Though each of these stories is enjoyable on its own as a short story, they come together to make a very effective point together, and the third story in particular combines with the framing sequence to hit the reader like a fist. This was enjoyable to me on the basis of the art, the characters and the dialogue, but it also left me with something that haunted me and made me think long after I had put the book down.
