The second collection of the comic book spun off from the TV series about FBI cases insusceptible to ordinary explanation is as rewarding as its predecessor. The two-part stories "Night Light" and "Family Portrait" well exemplify the two basic kinds of " X Files" yarn, discriminable by the natures of their respective weirdnesses, extraterrestrial and supernatural. In "Night Light," lights in the sky that "disappear" people turn out to be, perhaps, creatures from out there--skyward, that is. The demon machine in "Family Portrait," on the other hand, seems to be from down there--hell, to be generically precise. Three shorter stories, examples of category two, are about various kinds of revenants, dead in "Donor," vegetative in "Tiptoe through the Tulpa," and spiritually masquerading, it seems, in "The Kanashibari." "Silver Lining" is another cursed-object tale, like "Family Portrait." Rozum is the primary writer, Charles Adlard the primary penciller, here (Gordon Purcell's two contributions look better). They and the other contributors have the " X Files" formulas gratifyingly down pat.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)
