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Matt Battaglia’s Ghosts of the Carousel is an excellently drawn, haunting story that never completely leans into what makes it special.
Comics are often associated with the bombast and excitement of superheroes fighting battles of mythic proportions. Nevertheless, Jack Kirby and countless other cartoonists have used action-packed stories to develop the medium and entertain audiences for generations, proving comics can have a much greater range. For years, creators like Will Eisner, Art Spiegelman and Trina Robbins have presented new types of comic stories. A new publisher, Dauntless Stories, seems to be following in their footsteps with its new standalone, mostly wordless comic: Matt Battaglia’s Ghosts of the Carousel.
Ghosts of the Carousel follows a nameless man as he walks along a mostly abandoned boardwalk. He is haunted by demons from his past, who both tempt him and threaten him. His memories seem to take on substance and harass him wherever he goes, while giving the audience a better sense of the man’s history and just how far he’s come.
Battaglia’s story unfolds at a carefully controlled pace that pulls the reader into the bizarre and dreamy images of the protagonist’s memories. The limited dialogue and narration gives Battaglia’s wonderful art room to shine. It adds a layer of mystery to the story, at once contributing to the surreal nature of the imagery while also making it easier for the reader to project their own experiences onto the protagonist.
Unfortunately, when Battaglia does decide to use words, they tend to pull the reader out of the rhythm of the comic. Much of the dialogue feels stilted and overwrought. It is as if he is trying to hammer home the comic’s theme, but by taking the time to literally spell things out for the audience, he undermines the atmospheric tone that makes it so interesting and effectively reduces an otherwise inventive dream to a familiar cliche.
Where the writing in Ghosts of the Carousel leaves plenty to be desired, Battaglia’s art is incredible. He incorporates a dazzling array of textures that make the black and white compositions as vibrant as any full-color comics page. Battaglia uses heavy inks and screen tones to submerge the main character in the murky depths of his memories, and then surprises character and reader alike with bright white pages that are almost blinding in contrast. Each page is composed with a clarity that renders all words unnecessary and a variety that excellently controls the pace at which the reader moves through the comic.
At its best, Ghosts of the Carousel is simultaneously surreal and emotionally grounded. Battaglia’s work is multi-faceted and enthralling, like a great poem, but his attempts to clarify the action or the theme of the story diminish the beauty of the work. It adds a ham-fisted, saccharine tone to the piece as a whole. That being said, his art is gorgeous and some particularly impressive sequences are sure to remain etched in readers’ minds. Battaglia certainly swings for the fences in Ghosts of the Carousel, and while this isn’t quite a home run, it is certainly worthwhile.
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