I think I would have appreciated the artwork more if the subject matter wasn't bad. I can stomach a lot but, if you're going to write about child abuse then the storyline needs to be good, and it can't feel like exploitation. This seemed like torture porn. I don't know the purpose of the plot and I don't care to read more about "Grendel" to find out. ( )

Painful and disturbing (while beautifully drawn), this volume makes explicit something often tacit in Matt Wagner's Grendel cycle, the multiple connections between aggression and gender, and the way it plays out within families. Filling in a bit of the Grendel story only alluded to in Wagner's work, Devil Child explores the tragic experience of Stacy Palumbo, Hunter Rose's adopted daughter and the mother of Christine Spar, the second Grendel. ( )

The "Grendel" brand is quite inconsistent; you have eccellent works but also sub-par material; this one falls somewhere in between. The story feels like an excuse for Matt Wagner to display child abuse, trying hard to shock the reader. And I like artist Tim Sale like the next man, but here he's even more "essential" than usual. All in all, Wagner probably got from me the result he wanted, which wasn't admiration but rather disgust. ( )

disturbing. very disturbing. i wish now that i had not spent my lunch time reading this. i can never unknow what is on these pages. ( )