It has been said that the best and most effective horror stories are rooted in reality. That doesn’t mean that such horrors are based on true stories per se, but rather that they speak to something of the human experience that is authentic and relatable and when it comes to It Happened on Hyde Street: Devour #1, that is exactly the kind of horror story readers get. A one-shot set within the world of Geoff John’s new Hyde Street series, It Happened on Hyde Street: Devour #1 explores not exactly what’s going on on Hyde Street and the mystery set up with Mr. X-Ray, but instead dives into how some of the poor souls ensnared by the various bad actors on Hyde Street end up there — and in doing so provides a bit of incisive commentary on body image and to fixation with being thin.
Written by Maytal Zchut with art by Leila Leiz, Devour #1 is a story told over three generations — a mother, daughter, and granddaughter — through the bulk of the story is centered around the granddaughter, Lily. Lily is preparing for her wedding but finds it difficult to fit perfectly into a wedding dress. It’s a scenario not uncommon for many brides, and Lily finds herself dieting to make it work. Except, it’s difficult and it is something not made any easier by her mother and grandmother, who are both incredibly thin. As readers learn from the outset, Lily’s grandmother was once overweight herself but wandered into the shop of Miss Goodbody who sold her a mysterious supplement called Devour that promised a dramatic and miraculous body transformation. Of course, because Miss Goodbody’s shop is on Hyde Street, this miracle weight loss comes at a price beyond just the generational trauma of a fixation on being thin.
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What works particularly well about Devour #1 is that the real horror is less the truth about Devour — which the story does reveal and it is, on its own, quite horrifying — and more the reality of body image and the fixation on thinness as a hallmark of beauty. Lily’s grandmother is shown as being insecure about her body in 1983 despite being surrounded by the reassurances of her daughter (and before that, her husband) that she is beautiful as she is. The grandmother puts her own fatphobia onto her daughter, Patricia, even before she takes Devour, shaming the child for wanting cookies and warning her not to become fat like her mother. While we are never actually shown what happens with Patricia growing up, it becomes clear very quickly that Patricia has ended up on Devour as well, and though she initially advocates for Lily to have her own path towards comfort in her body, the pressure ultimately becomes too much and the cycle starts again, just in a more terrifying way than before as Lily becomes a mother herself.
While Devour #1 has a horror twist about what the active ingredient in the Devour product really is (and suggests what Miss Goodbody is really doing when she pushes her “miracle” product on people, Zchut does a fantastic job of making the real horror not the diet supplement, but the pressure placed on women by society and even their own loved ones to be thin. It is, in a sense, a timeless subject, but also one brought a little more to the surface discourse in recent months with the availability of medications that have been helping people lose weight. In particular, Lily’s struggle to lose weight on her own or “naturally” is particularly incisive as we see the young woman do everything “right” but still not achieve the goal placed on her by the perceptions of others. It’s perhaps in the contrast between Lily seemingly being somewhat content with who she is and the way those closest to her are trying to force her to be someone else where the most chilling — and heartbreaking — commentary lies and thus, makes the turn at the end with Lily and her own newborn daughter the real horror in the story more than anything Miss Goodbody is doing.
[RELATED: Hyde Street #1 Review: An Enticing Introduction Down a Dark Path]
Artistically, Leiz does a fantastic job of presenting the “normal” bodies of Lily and of her pre-Devour grandmother with respect and even beauty. They are some of the loveliest images in the entire book, as contrasted by with the skeletal forms of post-Devour grandmother and Patricia who both, despite being the thin ideal, look twisted and ugly. There are also some fantastic Easter eggs for Hyde Street sprinkled in the issue’s art as well, with Leiz incorporating the characters in a way that does not distract from the tale playing out in a subtly sinister fashion page by page.
While we are still getting to know the overall world of Hyde Street in the main comic, It Happened on Hyde Street: Devour #1 makes for a strong and impressive introduction to the lure of the world. By speaking to something that is so relatable and unfortunately common for many by taking on the obsession with being thin, Devour #1 reminds readers just how easy it is to succumb to the lure of a quick fix with no thought to the consequences. The result is a horror that maybe isn’t full of jump scares or gore, but settles right into the thoughts and is deeply uncomfortable less for the world the story inhabits, but for the world the reader actually exists in.
Published by Image Comics
On October 30, 2024
Written by Maytal Zchut
Art by Leila Leiz
Colors by Alex Sinclair
Letters by Rob Leigh
Cover by Ivan Reis, Danny Miki, and Brad Anderson
