Mignola and Allie pull no punches with Liz Sherman. Frightened by the ghost of a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft, Liz Sherman runs back to civilization where she must deal with memories of her pyrokinetic powers running amok. Her inferno engulfs the lives of loved ones and friends. This is the guilt that weighs down upon her and distinguishes her from her movie counterpart. It’s the memory that will shape her adulthood.
Still, you cannot blame a child for unleashing such a blaze because that child does not have the maturity to control such ability. Fortunately, for Liz, the BPRD and Professor Bruttenholm were on hand to prevent the holier than holy from passing judgment. Not so with the accused witch.
Karl Moline, Andy Owens and Dave Stewart characterize the amber-eyed, fiery-haired Liz Sherman as a somewhat gawky teen. You may argue that this is what Moline does best. His motifs favor the lank. Liz is less animated than Fray, for instance, but Moline illustrates teens in a very believable way, and his characters’ sublime movements are just as winning as the more overt kineticism in his works.
While Moline and Owens lend their sensibilities to The Dead Remembered, Mignola’s stamp makes BPRD haunting. The somber tale draws upon Mignola’s hallmarks. Repeated images instill an eerie unease throughout the story. The atmosphere changes when rain develops through the panels. The priest though rendered in Moline’s more open, less shadowy style still seems like a Mignola creation; particularly in the minimalist design.
At a guess, Allie pinned down some of the more realistic characters in Mignola’s story. Trevor, a winning lad with a smoking issue, is likely his. Trevor’s father though briefly seen is more down to earth than the odd, scholarly Bruttenholm. Both writers however expose the hypocrisy of the Church, and it’s not a visual of The Necronomicon that the poor woman fears at the end of the story. It’s The Bible.