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Classic Comic Compendium: GRENDEL – DEVIL CHILD is a difficult but powerful read

And it's brought to life with Tim Sale's inventive artwork.

03/03/2025 11:00 am

A couple weeks ago, while I was cleaning, I came across some loose issues of Grendel that I didn’t realize I hadn’t put back away. These were mostly from the early 2000s period when Dark Horse was reprinting the second Comico series as a set of mini-series (Devil’s Legacy, Devil Inside, God & The Devil, etc.). Among them, though, was the two-issue series of new material that preceded the reprints. This book served as a bridge between the Hunter Rose and Christine Spar eras, and it’s one of the few mainline Grendel stories that wasn’t written by series creator Matt Wagner himself.

Grendel – Devil Child by Diana Schutz, Tim Sale, Teddy Kristiansen, and Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Wes Abbott follows Hunter Rose’s adopted daughter and Christine Spar’s mother, Stacy Palumbo, and her rather complicated, problematic life. Dealing with her mental issues, guilt, and abuse that she suffered over the years. And how the legacy of Grendel spread its shadow across the lives of many, seemingly tainting everything.

“For as long as I can remember, I have felt a dark, empty place deep inside me. It is a place only I know. Through the years, it has kept me…serious. No one has ever touched it.”

This is not an easy read. It makes sense why Wagner would ask longtime Grendel editor Diana Schutz from back even in the Comico days to write this. Dealing with a woman’s perspective on physical development and abuse.

Stacy Palumbo is a very complicated character. One who witnessed death early in her life with her parents, and her Uncle Barry, and was traumatized by that, but this story hints at problems even deeper. That she might not be as sympathetic, jealous of others affections, and the prime instigator in the death of her adoptive father and best furry friend in the werewolf, Argent. How dealing with it through therapy leads to more manipulation and a child. But it becomes harder when you see what she’s dealt with in abuse and abandonment on her own, what looks like a split with reality, and how she handles her own child.

The harrowing narrative brought incredibly to life with Tim Sale’s inventive artwork. There’s an interesting motif of the Grendel devil eyes pattern that he works into many pages, into blood, into shadows, into the design for a cat, evoking a menacing feel everywhere. Also playing with the layouts at times, emphasizing the journaling that Palumbo is doing herself and a nod to what Christine Spar will do later with Hunter Rose’s journals to write the in-universe version of Devil by the Deed. The darkness and mood of the work enriched by the sombre blues of Teddy Kristiansen’s painted colours.

And solid letters from Starkings and Abbott. Particularly when we see an interplay of dialogue and narration, highlighting a disconnect between thought and action, want and what actually happens.

“At night I listen to the crickets.”

One of these days, I’m going to have to do a full deep dive re-read of the Grendel series. It’s one that radically changes over time, going from the original Hunter Rose era, dealing with essentially a supervillain type running a criminal organization, through to an empire that was inspired by him, and a Grendel-Prime robot protecting the heir to the empire across weird sci-fi adventures. With more vigilantism, religious and sociopolitical commentary, resistance fighters, and other stuff in between. With two more major segments with Tim Sale artwork (inking over Hannibal King in one and then doing art himself in Devil’s Reign) but also a plethora of other phenomenal artists.

In the meantime, re-reading Grendel – Devil Child from Schutz, Sale, Kristiansen, and Starkings & Abbott reminding me of how deep the series could go. How it’s not afraid to tell a difficult and disturbing story, with a problematic protagonist. Dealing with murder and abuse in a way that makes you think about the issues, wondering about nature versus nurture, and whether Stacy Palumbo’s actions are part of a cycle of abuse.