The Dreaming, Vols. 1 & 2
Published by: Tokyopop
Writer & Artist: Queenie Chan

192 (174) + 192 (186) pages.
Original Language: English
Orientation: Left to right
Vintage: December 2005 and November 2006
Production Artists: Lucas Rivera & Jason Milligan (vol. 1); Jihye “Sophia” Hong & Courtney Geter (vol. 2)
Cover Design: Anne Marie Horne
Copy Editors: Peter Ahlstrom, Eric Althoff, & Hope Donovan (vol. 1); Stephanie Duchin (vol. 2)
Editors: Carol Fox (vols. 1 & 2), and Paul Morrissey (vol. 2)
Publisher’s Rating: Teen, Ages 13+

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Premise: Victorian Gothic Horror. In Australia. In the back country of Australia, actually, and that’s just the background; the story starts when two present-day girls transfer to an odd boarding school.

Synopsis:

At an isolated boarding school deep in the Australian bush, twin sisters Jeanie and Amber are having a little trouble adjusting. The other students they meet are nice enough, but everyone is a bit guarded. Or scared, even. Weird things happen at the school. The vice principal is perhaps insane, but even if she isn’t nuts, it’s clear she doesn’t like kids much. (have to wonder why she works at a school, then.) The only cool teacher, who happens to be the schools headmistress–and who also happens to be Jeanie and Amber’s aunt–is going to be gone for the next 3 months.

No wonder the girls are feeling a little isolated. They are also having trouble sleeping. When they do sleep, they have the same weird dream, about girls in antique dresses doing odd things out in the woods. And the blood, and the chasing, and the…

And of course they wake up, feeling awful. Jeanie starts taking sleeping pills, for dreamless nights, leaving Amber somewhat alone.

The dreams seem to tie in with an odd series of paintings, hidden here and there about campus, and also with mysterious disappearances. It seems that every decade or so, a girl will leave the school and wander into the nearby bush, never to be seen again.

Can the twins overcome the differences growing between them? What happens when the disappearances go from story and rumour to something all too immediate? And what’s the deal with the sealed room across from the vice principal’s office?

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Review:

I thought this was a two-parter when I bought these, but now it looks like I have to wait a year or so to finish this title off.

I mention it in passing, because it is easy to get caught up in the mystery and characters, and it’s going to be a bitch waiting to close this out. You might put these on a shelf, without reading them, until you can get that 3rd volume. If you can resist the temptation.

Queenie Chan isn’t afraid of ink: Each panel has rich screen tones and inkwork, in fact the pages almost run black with all the print they’re burdened with. From wallpaper to dress fabric to the ominous mass of Australian bush, covered in fog, just outside every window– even if we removed the text from every dialogue bubble, you’d know this was meant to be a gothic horror. The artwork gives the books an atmosphere that really suits the story.

The story, however, isn’t just a reworking of Wollstonecraft sensibilities in the manga format. Our characters are present-day teens, and they’re just as creeped-out by the Victorian-goth backdrop and backstory. Well, that and blood dripping from trees in your dreams every night; that’d creep anyone out. One of the things that makes the story so effective is that it plays out primarily inside the characters’ heads. In fact, the dramatic punch on the last page of volume one is when the eerie events of dreams finally break through into the real world.

The reason I only give the books 3 points out of 5 is that horror isn’t really my cup of chai. (If you like gothic horror, this is your book.) I might not have bought these at all, except when I discovered an Australian comic artist & writer, I just had to give this title a try. (There are some notes from Chan at the end of volume one that give us insight on how her background and some odd bits of Australian history have informed the story presented.)