Minor Arcana #2 Review

 

Writer, Artist & Colorist: Jeff Lemire

Letterer: Steve Wands

Cover Artists: Jeff Lemire; Reiko Murakami; Matías Bergara; Mike Del Mundo

Designers: Tom Muller & Grace Park

Editors: Maya Bollinger, Eric Harburn & Matt Gagnon

Publisher: Boom! Studios

Price: $4.99

Release Date: October 9, 2024

 

Theresa fled her claustrophobic hometown as soon as she could. But now she is back in Limberlost, and her mother wants her to help run the Psychic shop. While her mom sleeps off an afternoon of indulgence, Theresa takes her first customer. Does anything strange occur during her first psychic reading? Let’s grab our Tarot decks, leap into Minor Arcana #2, and find out!

 

Story

Theresa spent her life running away. She fled her manipulative mother, the embarrassing Psychic shop, a friendship gone wrong, and a town that limited people's opportunities. Yet when she reached the city, Theresa couldn't stop pushing people and opportunities away. If her bedraggled appearance doesn't ward people off, her ever-present frown and judgmentalism doom any prospective relationships.

 

Jean's desperation to connect with her husband's spirit awakens Theresa's compassion. But then she armors up, telling herself the psychic reading is all for show. Still, going through the motions primes a pump. Her mental and spiritual machinery return Theresa to the Edgewater Hotel. Unlike in her dreams, Theresa feels like she is there. She fights her instincts and enters the building beside the water. Theresa presses the Up button on the elevator. She finds a door that promises insights. Yet it refuses to open for her. So, Theresa ventures through another door. Unlike the locked one, it hangs open.

 

In Minor Arcana #2, Jeff Lemire forces Theresa to confront her preconceptions. What she discovers beyond the open door threatens to unleash a power she fought long to repress. But now Theresa must decide to embrace her abilities or continue to hide from them and reassure herself that a sad song fits her as comfortably as her grandfather's jacket.

 

Art

Theresa’s shadow stretches across the tile floor of the empty hotel lobby. With her back to the beach chairs perched before the limitless sea, she passes the abandoned front desk and heads toward the elevator with the free-standing ashtray. Upstairs, Theresa regards an empty hallway. When the door bearing the Eye of Providence refuses to open, her frown and squinched-up nose evoke a witch in Minor Arcana #2.

 

Unlike the wet-on-wet gray, yellow, and green lobby and hallway, Jeff Lemire paints the room behind the open door with blue, green, and orange. Theresa’s gray face and clothes take on their real-world appearance thanks to Lemire's watercolors, and a man with brown hair and a yellow, green, and orange shirt greets her. When Theresa returns to her mother's shop, the vibrant red walls, purple fabrics, and yellow crystal ball welcome her return. Yet the ivory and yellow skull atop the bookcase seems to offer a warning.

 

Steve Wands conjures black uppercase letters into white dialogue balloons and narrative boxes. Frequent intonation emboldens and enlarges words. Yet the subtle sounds that comfort Theresa precede the crash of an approaching storm in Minor Arcana #2. Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

When a psychic reading opens a door in her mind, fate hands Theresa a means to forge a new relationship with the mother who loves her in Minor Arcana #2.

 

Rating 9.6/10

 

For preview art and more covers see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.