by Clair Gibson, Marian Churchland & Sloane Leong

As the loose Eight House tie in continues in it’s sixth issue, the comic consistently improves upon what it does best in telling high fantasy and expanding the books plot and internal continuity with subtlety and atmosphere.

Issue six focuses on the death of the children from two separate parents that each killed the other’s offspring and the stark inevitability of their final conflict with one another. The writing by Churchland  & Gibson is especially strong in the narration and internal dialogue at the start of the book focusing on a flashback of a young arrogant warrior and his reflection on the mistakes that he had to live with for his entire life. Artist Sloane Leong continues to give From Under Mountains it’s life in her hazy visual storytelling. The art is “dreamlike” in the sense that it actually feels like dreams in how it starts off relatively normal before her use of surrealism begins to bend the stories reality. Throughout the book, the panel placement and how she uses that to drive the narrative continues to be a highlight of the series.

From Under Mountains consistently moves with a measured and low key brilliance. As perhaps one of the most underrated ongoing comics series, it’s singularity in fantasy storytelling makes it perhaps the best series of it’s genre currently in the medium.

Disclosure: From Under Mountains artist and co-creator Sloane Leong provided an advance review copy of this comic to Nothing But Comics without any payment between the site and publisher or agreement on the review’s content.