Category: Horror Stories

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel: Past Lives


By Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Cliff Richards, Christian Zanier, Joe Pimentel & Digital Jump (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-366-7

These days an ingenuous ingénue loving an undead bloodsucker is so worn out and overused it is mostly a subject of parody and jest, but not too long ago the concept was relatively fresh and enticing, with longed-for trysts generating lots of sparks and oodles of blood…

For an entire generation, their first brush with the idea came courtesy of landmark TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Her charismatic career began after a clueless cheerleaderValley Girl teenager suddenly turned into an indomitable monster-killer: latest winner of an arcane mystic/genetic lottery which transformed unsuspecting mortal maids into martial arts killing machines…

The cult series and its assorted media spin-offs refocused the zeitgeist and, since comics’ clever, witty graphic interpretation of the show is what interests me most, here’s a look at one of the first team-up projects.

Once the company secured the strip licensing rights, they began generating a Buffy regular series, a welter of original graphic novels, specials, numerous miniseries and eventually a full spin-off.

Buffy Summers lived in the small California hamlet of Sunnydale, unfortunately situated on a paranormal portal to the Nether Realms dubbed The Hellmouth. Here she and a small band of friends battled devils, demons and every sort of horror inexorably drawn to the area and whom/what/which all considered humanity an appetiser and planet Earth an irresistible eldritch “fixer-upper” opportunity.

With Rupert Giles, scholarly mentor, father-figure and Watcher of all things unnatural, Buffy and her “Scooby Gang” began making the after-dark streets of Sunnydale safe for the oblivious human morsels, aided by an enigmatic stud-muffin calling himself Angel…

He was a good vampire – one who possessed a soul – and he and the Summers girl fell in love. Sadly that broke the spell which made him a tragic hero and instead unleashed the diabolical vampire he had been – the red-handed Angelus who had turned Europe into his personal charnel house for nearly two centuries.

When Angel was finally restored to the ranks of the valiant – thanks to the loving efforts of the Slayer – the paralysing guilt and threat of a relapse compelled the vampire to leave Sunnydale and set up monster-killing shop in Los Angeles: a city packed with its own plague of supernatural horrors (in actuality the separation was prompted by Angel winning his own TV series and naturally that meant a solo comicbook too)…

This British Titan Books edition – collecting the story originally and alternately seen in Angel #15-16 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer #29-30 (January and February 2001) – combines the talents of scripters Christopher Golden & Tom Sniegoski with illustrators Cliff Richards, Christian Zanier, Joe Pimentel & Digital Jump and commences with an Introduction by Golden, detailing the genesis of this ambitious crossover before the drama commences in LA, where Angel is enduring heightened demonic assaults.

The monsters are furiously out of control, claiming Angel’s deadly new female ally is responsible for ramping up the ongoing Cold War. Unfortunately, the undead crusader has absolutely no idea what the assembled horrors are talking about but realises things are getting desperate when higher level demons attack him in his own sanctuary…

Meanwhile in London, the Council of Watchers convene a special meeting. The normally passive supernatural society are all in a tizzy over Mr. Travers‘ pet project. It seems his disciple Alexa Landry has absconded with a number of arcane artefacts and is now creating a public spectacle, acting more like a Slayer than a coolly dispassionate occult observer…

In Sunnydale, recent College Freshman Buffy Summers has also noticed a sharp jump in monster mayhem. Night predators are streaming in, having escaped from LA and all claiming – in the brief moments before the Slayer ends them – that they are being relentlessly stalked and savagely destroyed by another human female…

Back in Los Angeles, Angel barely survives a nigh-overwhelming monster ambush only to discover on returning home that his mortal allies Cordelia and Wesley have been brutally beaten by an apparently rogue female Watcher…

Buffy #29 then resumes the tale as Giles gets a call from the hospitalised Wesley and rallies the gang to Angel’s assistance. Soon he, Buffy, witches-in-training Willow and Tara, former-demon Anya and plucky human sidekick Xander are on the road – but not the Slayer’s current boyfriend.

Left behind and sulking is Riley Finn – a military spook-buster trained by the government as part of a covert Federal anti-demon task force. Apparently Buffy isn’t too keen on her past and present beaus trading stories…

In a flashback, the scene switches to the 19th century where Sir Andrew Landry and his faithful band of vampire hunters spectacularly fail to destroy the diabolical Angelus. Moreover the deeply insulted and chimeric vampire determines to visit his particular brand of generationally extended retribution upon the nobleman and his family…

Back in the now, Angel has his first painful encounter with Alexa, last of the Landrys, even as Watcher Travers reintroduces himself to Buffy and Giles. The perturbed patriarch wants the Slayer’s help in stopping his off-the-rails acolyte, but before he can ask, the trio are attacked by a posse of demons out for payback…

Elsewhere, as Alexa thrashes Angel, the story emerges: Travers had clandestinely supplied Landry with mystic weaponry in the hopes she would prove a more loyal tool than Buffy, utterly unaware that his scholarly protégé had a personal agenda to address wrongs dating back centuries…

Now she is seemingly unstoppable and even combining all their various monster hunting forces isn’t enough to stop the magically augmented, vengeance-crazed psycho…

Luckily Buffy and Giles have a cunning plan…

With covers by Keith Wood, Zanier & Dave Stewart, this is a splendidly straightforward, fast and furious action romp blending supernatural thrills, beastly chills and sharp wit: a total tonic prescribed for anybody suffering a surfeit of lovestruck face-suckers and kissypoo predators – which last really should know better at their age…
Buffy the Vampire Slayer™/Angel ™ & © 2001 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Food Chain


By Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Doug Petrie, Jamie S. Rich, Tom Fassbender, Jim Pascoe, Christian Zanier, Cliff Richards Ryan Sook & others (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-315-5

Having conquered television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer began a similar crusade with the far harder-to-please comicbook audiences. Launched in 1998 and offering smart, sassy tales to accompany the funny, action-packed and mega-cool onscreen entertainment, the saga began in an original graphic novel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Dust Waltz) before debuting as a monthly series.

She quickly became a major draw for publisher Dark Horse – whose line of licensed comicbook successes included Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Aliens and Predator – and her exploits were regularly supplemented by short stories in company showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents and other venues.

This commodious UK Titan Books compilation features stories spanning 1999 and 2000 – set during Seasons 3 and 4 of the TV show – including issues #12, 16 and 20 of the regular title, a couple of yarns from Buffy the Vampire Slayer Annual 1999 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Lovers’ Walk plus the Dark Horse/Wizard co- published Buffy/Angel #½: a period which saw Buffy’s noble vampire lover Angel set up shop in his own spin-off series –both small screen and printed…

What You Need to Know: Buffy Summers was a hapless Californian cheerleader Valley Girl until the night she inexplicably turned into a hyper-strong, impossibly durable monster-killer. Accosted by a creepy old coot from a secret society of Watchers she discovered that she had become a “Slayer” – the most recent recipient of an ancient geas which transformed selected mortal maids into living slaughter-machines of all things undead, arcane or uncanny.

After little trouble in Los Angeles she moved with her mom to the deceptively quiet hamlet of Sunnydale, but Buffy quickly and painfully discovered that her new hometown was situated on the edge of an eldritch gateway known to all the unhallowed as The Hellmouth…

Enrolling at Sunnydale High, Buffy made some friends and, tutored by new Watcher Rupert Giles, conducted a never-ending war on devils, demons and every shade of predatory supernatural species inexorably drawn to the area…

The stories re-presented here span Buffy’s horrific Graduation Day and eventual transition to the local college (complete with a new boyfriend – federal/military spook-buster Riley Finn) but open with a few High School escapades such as ‘Food Chain Part 1’ (by Christopher Golden, Christian Zanier & Andy Owens from Buffy #12 where it was originally seen under the title ‘A Nice Girl Like You’) as new student Sandy inexplicably gets involved with bad boy Brad Caulfield and his gang.

No one in the “Scooby-Gang” (Willow, Xander, Cordelia and werewolf Oz) can understand what she sees in the local louts… until Buffy uncovers Sandy’s true nature and her nasty habit of feeding on the energy of young folk…

Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Cliff Richards & Joe Pimentel then detail ‘The Latest Craze’ (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Annual 1999) wherein an avaricious old enemy introduces demonically addictive toy “pets” to the impressionable Sunnydale kids. However, the wickedly adorable “Hooligans” are not only moonlight kleptomaniacs but have a sinister agenda all their own…

From the same source, by Doug Petrie, Ryan Sook & Tim Goodyear comes ‘Bad Dog’ wherein the Slayer, whilst hunting for Oz on one of his bad (i.e. full moon) nights, encounters a nasty young sorcerer determined to turn himself into a god at Willow’s expense, after which ‘Food Chain Part 2‘ (Buffy #16 by Golden, Zanier, Marvin Mariano, Draxhall Jump, Curtis P. Arnold, Jason Minor & Owens) reveals how Brad is still connected to the demonic Sandy’s monstrous master and killing in his name…

Set in the aftermath of the pivotal Graduation Day episode, ‘Double Cross’ (#20, by Petrie, Minor & Arnold) follows Angel as he heads for his new mission in LA and stay-at-home Buffy when  a demon who feeds on lost hope targets both monster-hunters simultaneously, eager to destroy them both at their lowest ebb…

A bright change of pace follows as trainee witch Willow and new partner Tara go hunting for a rare magical flower and stay in a haunted Bed-&-Breakfast. ‘Punish Me with Kisses’ (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Lovers’ Walk by Jamie S. Rich & China Clugston-Major) sees the young lovers futilely trying to placate and exorcise a married couple who had been quarrelling for most of the century since their deaths…

The special also provided ‘One Small Promise’ by Tom Fassbender & Jim Pascoe, with art by Richards & P. Craig Russell, in which Buffy and Riley have a thoroughly entertaining spat which a band of roving vampires mistakenly assume might put them off their staking game…

Wrapping things up is ‘City of Despair’ from Buffy/Angel #½ (Fassbender, Pascoe, Richards & Owens) wherein Angel and Buffy – although separated by hundreds of miles – are united in an extra-dimensional arena after their souls are stolen to take part in a demon’s gladiatorial game…

This is one more splendidly accessible assemblage of arcane action and furious phantasm fighting, even for those unfamiliar with the extensive back history: another self-contained chronicle of creepy carnage and witty wonderments as easily enjoyed by the newest neophyte as any confirmed connoisseur.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ™ & © 2001 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Black is the Color


By Julia Gfrörer (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-717-8

There’s never been a better time to find dark and imaginative horror comics tales and the genre has seldom been better represented than with this eerie yet elegiac historical fantasy from Julia Gfrörer.

The relative newcomer hails from Portland, Oregon – having been born in 1982 and raised in historic Concord, New Hampshire. She studied Painting and Printmaking at Seattle’s CornishCollege of the Arts and first began turning heads a few years ago with her thoughtfully terrifying comicbooks Flesh and Bone and Too Dark to See as well as appearances in Thickness, Arthur Magazine, Black Eye, Study Group Magazine and Best American Comics.

The author brings a gift for sensitive emotional scrutiny and quirkily macabre understatement to this slim monochrome tome detailing the last days of a marooned mariner and the strange creature who temporarily adopts him…

It begins in the middle of the ocean as sailors Xavier and Warren are approached by the Captain’s Mate. The voyage is going badly. Storms have battered the frail wooden vessel and provisions are low.

As they were the last to join the ship’s company, the crew expects the pair to calmly get into the dinghy and drift away, giving the rest some slim chance of survival…

Xavier is already quite ill and Warren enquires why they can’t just be shot, but nobody wants a murder on their already benighted souls…

Cast adrift and enduring harsh exposure, the pair float aimlessly. Hardship and privation soon ends Xavier, but as angry, resentful Warren languishes in the boat awaiting his own death, he thinks he hears singing in the night and is soon conversing with a woman who seems to know impossible things – such as how and what his far away wife and child are doing…

More than half convinced he’s gone mad he continues his strange delirious conversations with her, all the while certain that his life is slowly ebbing away…

She won’t save Warren but the sea siren is quite content to stay with him as he expires, sharing intimate memories. And far away across the waves, his former shipmates sail helplessly into another storm as mermaids gather to watch…

Bleak, beautiful and lyrically elegant, this oddly mesmerising, gently scary, utterly visual yarn tellingly explores pride and loneliness but is cunningly underpinned by wry, anachronous humour and a cleverly memorable conclusion which will delight fans of mystery and imagination and lovers of beguiling illustration.
© 2013 Julia Gfrörer. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Impossible Tales: The Steve Ditko Archives volume 4


By Steve Ditko & various, edited by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-640-9

Perfect Christmas Present Alert! – For every discerning comics fan and suspense lover… 10/10

Once upon a time the short complete tale was the sole staple of the comicbook profession, where the plan was to deliver as much variety as possible to the reader. Sadly that particular discipline is all but lost to us today…

Steve Ditko is one of our industry’s greatest talents and probably America’s least lauded. His fervent desire to just get on with his job and to tell stories the best way he can, whilst the noblest of aspirations, will always be a minor consideration or even stumbling block for the commercial interests which for so long controlled all comics production and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of Funnybook output.

Before his time at Marvel, young Steve Ditko perfected his craft creating short stories for a variety of companies and it’s an undeniable joy to be able to look at this work from a such an innocent time when he was just breaking into the industry: tirelessly honing his craft with genre tales for whichever publisher would have him, utterly free from the interference of intrusive editors.

This fourth fantastic full-colour deluxe hardback reprints another heaping helping of his ever more impressive works: all published between July 1957 to March 1959 and all courtesy of the surprisingly liberal (at least in its trust of its employees’ creative instincts) sweat-shop publisher Charlton Comics. Some of the issues here were actually put together under the St. John imprint, but when that company abruptly folded much of its already prepared in-house material – even entire issues – were then purchased and published by clearing-house specialist Charlton with almost no editorial changes.

And whilst we’re being technically accurate it’s also important to note that the eventual publication dates of the stories in this collection don’t have a lot to do with when Ditko crafted these mini-masterpieces: Charlton paid so little the cheap, anthologically astute outfit had no problem in buying material it could leave on a shelf for months – if not years – until the right moment arrived to print…

All the tales and covers reproduced here were created after implementation of the draconian, self-inflicted Comics Code Authority rules (which sanitised the industry following Senate Hearings and a public witch-hunt) and all are wonderfully baroque and bizarre fantasy, suspense or science fiction yarns and helpfully annotated with a purchase number to indicate approximately when they were actually drawn.

Sadly there’s no indication of how many (if any) were actually written by Ditko, but as at the time the astoundingly prolific Joe Gill was churning out hundreds of stories every year for Charlton, he is always everyone’s first guess when trying to attribute script credit…

Following an historically informative Introduction and passionate advocacy by Blake Bell, the evocative tales of mystery and imagination commence with ‘The Menace of the Maple Leaves’, an eerie haunted woods fable from Strange Suspense Stories #33 (August 1957), closely followed a dark and sinister con-game which goes impossibly awry after a wealthy roué consults a supposed mystic to regain his youth and vitality and is treated in ‘The Forbidden Room’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #4 July 1957)…

From November 1957, Do You Believe in Nightmares? #1 offers a bounty of Ditko delights, beginning with the stunning St. John cover heralding a prophetic ‘Nightmare’, the strange secret of a prognosticating ‘Somnambulist’ and the justice which befell a seasoned criminal in ‘The Strange Silence’: all proving how wry fate intervenes in the lives of mortals. ‘You Can Make Me Fly’ then goes a tad off-topic with a tale of brothers divided by morality and intellect and the issue ends with a dinosaur-packed romp courtesy of ‘The Man Who Crashed into Another Era’…

Next up is a tale from one of Charlton’s earliest star characters. Apparently the title came from a radio show which Charlton licensed, and the lead/host/narrator certainly acted more as voyeur than active participant, speaking “to camera” and asking readers for opinion and judgement as he shared a selection of funny, sad, scary and wondrous human interest yarns all tinged with a hint of the weird and supernatural.

When rendered by Ditko, whose storytelling mastery, page design and full, lavish brushwork were just beginning to come into its mature full range, the Tales of the Mysterious Traveler were esoteric and utterly mesmerising…

From issue #6 (December 1957) ‘Little Girl Lost’ chills spines and tugs heartstrings with the story of a doll that loved its human companion, followed by a paranoid chase from Strange Suspense Stories #35 (December 1957) as ‘There it is Again’ sees a scientist dogged by his most dangerous invention…

Unusual Tales #10 (January 1958) provides a spooky cover before disclosing the awesome secret of ‘The Repair Man from Nowhere’ and, following the wickedly effective Cold War science fiction parable ‘Panic!’ from Strange Suspense Stories #35, resumes with ‘A Strange Kiss’ that draws a mining engineer into a far better world…

Out of This World #6 (November 1957) provides access to ‘The Secret Room’ which forever changed the lives of an aging, destitute couple. Then the cover and original artwork for Out of This World #12 (March 1959) lead to a tale in which a ruthless anthropologist is brought low by ‘A Living Doll’ he’d taken from a native village…

Returning to Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #6 results in three more captivating yarns. ‘When Old Doc Died’ is perhaps the best in this book, displaying wry humour in the history of a country sawbones who was only content when helping others, whilst ‘The Old Fool’ everybody mocked proved to be his village’s greatest friend, and ‘Mister Evriman’ explored the metaphysics of mass TV viewing in a thoroughly chilling manner…

The dangers of science without scruples informed the salutary saga of a new invention in ‘The Edge of Fear’ (Unusual Tales #10, January 1958), after which the cover of This Magazine is Haunted #14 (December 1957) ushers us into cases recounted by the ghoulish Dr. Haunt; specifically a scary precursor to cloning in ‘The Second Self’ and a diagnosis of isolation and mutation which afflicted ‘The Green Man’…

The cover and original art for the giant-sized Out of This World #7 (February 1958) precedes ‘The Most Terrible Fate’ befalling a victim of atomic warfare whilst ‘Cure-All’ detailed a struggle between a country doctor and a sinister machine which healed any ailment.

We return to This Magazine is Haunted #14 wherein Dr. Haunt relates a ghastly monster’s progress ‘From Out of the Depths’ before ‘The Man Who Disappeared’ tells his uncanny story to disbelieving Federal agents, whilst Out of This World #7 provides an ethereal ringside seat from which to view a time traveller’s ‘Journey to Paradise’.

From Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #7 (March 1958), ‘And the Fear Grew’ relates how an Australian rancher fell foul of an insidiously malign but cute-looking critter, after which ‘The Heel and the Healer’ reveals how a snake-oil peddler found a genuine magic cure-all, whilst ‘Never Again’ (Unusual Tales #10 again) took an eons-long look at mankind’s atomic follies and ‘Through the Walls’ (Out of This World #7) saw a decent man framed and imprisoned, only to be saved by the power of astral projection…

Out of This World #12 (March 1959) then declared ‘The World Awaits’ when a scientist uncovered an age-old secret regarding ant mutation and eugenics, Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #7 (February 1958) exposed ‘The Angry Things’ which haunted a suspiciously inexpensive Italian villa, and the gripping cover to Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #10 (November 1958) segues into the unsuspected sacrifice of a jazz virtuoso who saved the world in ‘Little Boy Blue’…

A tragic orphan found new parents after ‘The Vision Came’ (Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #8, July 1958) and Dr. Haunt proves television to be a cause of great terror in ‘Impossible, But…’ from This Magazine is Haunted volume 2, #16 (May 1958) – an issue which also disclosed the world-changing fate of a soviet scientist who became ‘The Man from Time’…

Another selfless inventor chose to be a ‘Failure’ rather than doom humanity to eternal servitude in a stunning yarn from Strange Suspense Stories #36 (March 1958), whilst the luckiest man alive at last experienced the downside of being ‘Not Normal’ (Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #7) before Unusual Tales #11 – from March 1958 – revealed the secret of Presidential statesmanship to a young politician in ‘Charmed, I’m Sure’, and exposed a magical secret race through an author’s vacation ‘Deep in the Mountains’…

This mesmerising collection then concludes with the suitably bizarre tale of Egyptian lucky charm ‘The Dancing Cat’ (from Strange Suspense Stories #37, July 1958) to ensure the spooky afterglow remains long after the final page and leave you hungry for more mystic merriment and arcane enjoyment…

This sturdily capacious volume has episodes that terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, stripped down plots and simple dialogue that let the art set the tone, push the emotions and tell the tale, from times when a story could end sadly as well as happily and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

These stories display the sharp wit and contained comedic energy which made so many Spider-Man/J. Jonah Jameson confrontations an unforgettable treat a decade later, and this is another cracking collection not only superb in its own right but as a telling examination into the genius of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists.

This is a book serious comics fans would happily kill or die or be lost in time for…
This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books. Introduction © 2013 Blake Bell. All rights reserved.

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A1: The World’s Greatest Comics


By various (Atomeka/Titan Comics)
ISBN: 987-1-78276-016-0

A1 began in 1988 as an anthology showcase for comics creativity, free from the usual strictures of mainstream publishers, consequently attracting many of the world’s top writers and artists to produce work at once personal and experimental, comfortingly familiar and, on occasion, deucedly odd.

Editors Garry Leach and Dave Elliott have periodically returned to their baby and this year the title was resurrected under the aegis of Titan Comics to provide more of the same.

Always as much committed to past excellence as future glories (you should see the two page dedication list here) and following the grandest tradition of British comics, the new title already has a great big hardback annual and it offers the same eclectic mix of material old and new…

After that aforementioned thank you to everyone from Frank Bellamy to Faceache in ‘The Dream Day’s are Back: The One’s Especially For You…’ the cartoon carnival commences with a truly “Golden Oldie” as Joe Simon & Jack Kirby (inked by Al Williamson) provide the science fiction classic ‘Island in the Sky’ – which first surfaced in Harvey Comic’s Race for the Moon #2 September, 1958 – wherein an expired astronaut returns from death thanks to something he picked up on Jupiter…

Each tale here is accompanied by fulsome creator biographies and linked by factual snippets about most artists’ drug of choice.

These photographic examples of coffee barista self-expression (with all ‘Latte Art’ throughout courtesy of Coffee Labs Roasters) are followed by illustrator Alex Sheikman & scripter Norman Felchle’s invitation to the baroque, terpsichorean delights of the ‘Odd Ball’.

The fantastic gothic revisionism resumes after another coffee-break as the sublime Sandy Plunkett details in captivating monochrome the picaresque perils of life in a sprawling urban underworld with his ‘Tales of Old Fennario’

‘Odyssey: A Question of Priorities’ by Elliot, Toby Cypress & Sakti Yuwono is a thoroughly up-to-date interpretation of pastiche patriotic avenger Old Glory, who now prowls modern values-challenged America, regretting the choices he’s made and the timbre of his current superhero comrades…

‘Image Duplicator’ by Rian Hughes & Dave Gibbons is, for me, the most fascinating feature included here, detailing and displaying comics creator’s admirable responses to the appropriation and rapine of comic book images by “Pop” artist Roy Lichtenstein.

In a move to belatedly honour the honest jobbing creators simultaneously ripped off and denigrated by the “recontextualisation” and transformation to High Art, Hughes and Gibbons approached a number of professionals from all sectors of the commercial arts and asked them to re-appropriate Lichtenstein’s efforts.

The results were displayed in the exhibition Image Duplicator and all subsequent proceeds donated to the charity Hero Initiative which benefits comic creators who have fallen on hard times.

In this feature you can see some of the results of the comicbook fightback with contributions from Hughes, Gibbons, FuFu Frauenwahl, Carl Flint, Howard Chaykin, Salgood Sam, Mark Blamire, Steve Cook, Garry Leach, Dean Motter, Jason Atomic, David Leach, Shaky Kane, Mark Stafford, Graeme Ross, Kate Willaert & Mitch O’Connell.

Master of all funnybook trades Bambos Georgiou then offers his 2011 tribute to DC’s splendidly silly Silver Age in the Curt Swan inspired ‘Weird’s Finest – Zuberman & Batguy in One Adventure Together!’ and Dominic Regan crafts a stunning Technicolor tornado of intriguing illumination as Doctor Arachnid has to deal with cyber Psychedelia and a divinely outraged ‘Little Star’…

‘Emily Almost’ by Bill Sienkiewicz first appeared in the original A1 #4, a bleak paean to rejection seen here in muted moody colour, after which Scott Hampton revisits the biblical tale of ‘Daniel’ and Jim Steranko re-presents his groundbreaking, experimental multi-approach silent story ‘Frogs!’ and follows up with ‘Steranko: Frogs!’  – his own treatise on the history and intent behind creating the piece thirty years ago…

‘Boston Metaphysical Society’ is a prose vignette of mystic Steampunk Victoriana written by Madeleine Holly-Rosing from her ongoing webcomic, ably illustrated by Emily Hu, whilst ‘Mr. Monster’ by Alan Moore & Michael T. Gilbert (with inks from Bill Messner-Loebs) is a reprint of ‘The Riddle of the Recalcitrant Refuse!’

First found in #3 (1985) of the horror hunter’s own series, it recounts how a dead bag-lady turns the city upside out when her mania for sorting junk transcends both death and the hero’s best efforts…

‘The Weirding Willows: Origins of Evil’ by Elliot, Barnaby Bagenda & Jessica Kholinne is one of the fantasy features from the new A1 – a dark reinterpretation of beloved childhood characters such as Alice, Ratty, Toad and Mole, which fans of Bill Willingham’s Fables should certainly take notice of…

‘Devil’s Whisper’ by James Robinson & D’Israeli also comes from A1 #4, and features Matt Wagner’s signature creation Grendel – or does it?

Stechgnotic then waxes lyrical about Barista art in ‘The Artful Latte’ after which ‘Melting Pot – In the Beginning’ by Kevin Eastman, Eric Talbot & Simon Bisley ends the affair by revisiting the ghastly hellworld where the gods spawned an ultimate survivor through the judicious and repeated application of outrageous bloody violence.

Of course it’s a trifle arrogant and rather daft to claim any collection as “The World’s Greatest Comics” and – to be honest – these aren’t. There’s no such thing and never can be…

However this absorbing, inspiring oversized collection does contain a lot of extremely good and wonderfully entertaining material by some of the best and most individualistic creators to have graced our art form.

What more can you possibly need?

A1 Annual © 2013 Atomeka Press, all contents copyright their respective creators. ATOMEKA © 2013 Dave Elliott & Garry Leach.

Anyone wishing to learn more or donate to Hero Initiative can find them at www.heroinitiative.org

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Tropic of the Sea


By Satoshi Kon, translated by Maya Rosewood (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-939130-06-8

In the West we’re used to single manga stories filling entire bookcases: epic sagas filling thousands of pages with brilliant, lovely, exciting but generally very long tales on every theme and subject under the sun.

Every so often, however, something comes along which is more familiar to English sensibilities, such as this short, sharp, sinister shocker from screenwriter, artist, animator and Director Satoshi Kon.

The author was born in Kushiro Subprefecture, Hokkaido in 1963 and after High School attended MusashinoArtUniversity’s Graphic Design department from 1982-1987. Whilst there he spent a lot of time studying foreign film.

Whilst still a student he released the short manga Toriko and became an assistant to Katsuhiro Otomo, dividing his time between comics and animation. In 1990 he produced the single volume Kaikisen we’re concentrating on here, before graduating more fully toward film as scripter, layout artist and animator.

Amongst his credits are World Apartment Horror, Roujin Z, Patlabor 2: The Movie, Magnetic Rose, Perfect Blue Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and others. What would have certainly been a stellar career in either or both art forms was cruelly cut short in 2010 when he died tragically young from pancreatic cancer.

As Shinsouban Kaikisen, this eerie yarn was first serialised in Kodansha’s Young Magazine in 1990: eleven episodes between issues #17 and 29, thereafter collected in tankōbon form and again as a Bijutsu Shuppan edition in 1999. That commemorative tome provides the informative Afterword which ends this book describing the author’s path from mangaka to animator.

Tropic of the Sea opens on a secluded beach where teenager Yosuke and his dog Fujimaru play before the dutiful son climbs to a hilltop shrine to enact a centuries-old ritual. His joyful morning is then disturbed when his father brings a TV crew into the sacred area.

Yozo Yashiro is the 23rd Head Priest of the Hiratsu Shrine; a thoroughly modern man keenly supporting a major consortium’s ambitious plans to turn the sleepy fishing village of Ade into a modern luxury resort. As such he’s keen on publicity and is happy to disturb the Mermaid’s Egg within the shrine and show it to all the viewers whilst explaining the silly but charming legend attached to it.

Long ago his ancestor found another such egg and promised a mermaid to respectfully care for it. After six decades the egg was returned to the sea and another egg left. In return the sea matron guaranteed calm waters and abundant fishing. This current egg was deposited in the shrine almost exactly sixty years ago…

The televised lecture is interrupted by Yosuke’s furious grandfather who has dragged himself out of hospital to stop the travesty he has just seen. Again the bitter argument begins. Grandfather is a fierce opponent of the proposed resort, whereas the current priest is no believer in his duties, nor the sacrosanct pact between the fishermen and the nonsensical sea-woman.

He does however realise the tourist potential of a Mermaid’s Egg theme park…

The village too is divided into warring camps on the issue. The fishermen see their ancestral livelihoods threatened by the proposed tourist trap whilst shopkeepers imagine thousands of new customers flocking in daily.

As Yosuke and best buddy Tetsu discuss the potential influx of college girls and summer days, they watch a limousine full of Ozaki Construction bigwigs arrive to inspect the monstrous Hotel growing like a giant tumour on the beach, and feel a pang of apprehension…

The egg is now common knowledge and billboards proclaiming “Welcome to Mermaid Country” are everywhere, but the boys’ minds are on more mundane things… but only until they take a dinghy out to the sacrosanct offshore islet Kamijima and catch a tantalising glimpse of something impossible in the water…

It turns out to be only old school friend Nami, back from Tokyo for the summer mermaid festival and taking a playful swim, but Yosuke is still uneasy and oddly unsettled…

With Ade becoming a bustling, money-mad boomtown and the priestly Yozo vigorously pushing villagers into selling their land to the developers, grandfather – despite his illness – is determined to honour the family’s ancient promise, and things take a decidedly dark turn when ambitious corporate development head Kenji Ozaki starts taking an unhealthy interest in the Egg. He also lets slip that Kamijimi will be razed and turned into Marine Land theme park…

He’s too late: by the time his team get to the hilltop shrine the Mermaid’s treasure has vanished. The trail leads to Kamijima where Nami and the boys find grandpa with the Egg in a submerged grotto. It’s the place where the mermaid has come every sixty years to pick up her hatchling and leave a new egg and grandpa has almost killed himself getting it here. Hard on the kids’ heels, however, come Ozaki and his goons.

As the businessman tries to appropriate the gleaming globe a strange waterspout erupts and in the tumult Yosuke badly cuts his hand. The drama soon subsides though, and as they all return to Ade in Ozaki’s launch, the boy is amazed to realise that when he picked up the Egg his wound completely healed…

There’s even stranger news to come as tensions over the Corporation’s full building schemes leak out. In the hospital the doctors cannot understand how grandpa’s terminal stomach cancer has completely gone…

Days pass and already the first wave of tourists are despoiling the previously quiet seaside atmosphere. Nami and Yosuke – no longer sceptical about the Egg – are making plans, but Ozaki is also convinced that the object has some mysterious power and takes steps to claim it for the company even as his bulldozers begin to clear Kamijima.

The fishermen are furious. Their once-abundant catches have dried up and the Mermaid’s Egg festival, crowded with suits and tourist interlopers, degenerates into a massive riot. In the melee, with Yozo’s compliance, Ozaki takes the artefact into his safekeeping, and the stunned, betrayed Yosuke thinks he sees a figure on a rock, waiting in vain for her child to be returned…

As Ozaki’s technicians poke and probe the Egg, the traditional day of surrender comes and goes. Yosuke barely survives an uncanny contact with something beyond the scope of science and, with Nami and Tetsu, determines to retrieve the Egg and return it to its true owner whatever the risk…

A tense clash on a bridge finds the kids surprisingly victorious but it’s too late. The Egg hatches in Yosuke’s hands and at the beach the sea vanishes. It can mean only one thing. A tsunami is coming: a wall of angry wild water to wipe away all the foul fabrications of double-dealing, oath-breaking mankind…

Brooding and pensive, this superb supernatural thriller builds tension with masterful dexterity in beguilingly understated style and Kon’s superb draughtsmanship and meticulous pacing keeps the suspense simmering until the spectacular denouement snatches your breath away. A cracking tale no fiction fan or comics collector should miss – especially as the book also includes a gallery of the beautiful title pages which accompanied the original Young Magazine serialisation.

Tropic of the Sea is a minor masterpiece of modern fantasy fiction and a perfect spooky epic movie in waiting…

© 2013 KON’STONE Inc. All rights reserved.
This book is printed in ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

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The Squirrel Machine


By Hans Rickheit (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-646-1

Hans Rickheit was born in 1973 and has been producing skilfully crafted art in many different arenas since the 1990s, beginning with self-published mini-comics before graduating to full-sized, full-length epics such as Kill, Kill, Kill. He has also worked in film, music, gallery works and performance art.

A Xeric award beneficiary, he came to broader attention in 2001 with the controversial graphic novel Chloe, and has since spread himself wide contributing to numerous anthologies and periodicals such as The Stranger, creating webcomics and instigating the occasional anthology periodical Chrome Fetus.

A keen student of dreams, Rickheit has been called obscurantist, and indeed in all his beautifully rendered and realised concoctions meaning is layered and open to wide interpretation. His preferred oeuvre is the recondite imagery and sturdily fanciful milieu of Victorian/Edwardian Americana which proved such rich earth for fantasists such as Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth, whilst his fine, studied, meticulously clear line is a perfect, incisive counterpoint to the cloud of miasmic mystery and cosmic confusion engendered by the protagonists of his most successful book.

The brothers Edmund and William Torpor abide in a secluded 19th century New England town but have never been part of their community. Raised alone by their artist mother they are very different from other kids, with Edmund especially obsessed with arcane engineering and the assemblage of one-of-a-kind musical instruments from utterly inappropriate components.

Fantastic dream-like journeys and progressions mark their isolated existence, which is far more in tune with a greater metaphysical cosmos, but as puberty gradually moves them to an awareness of base human sexuality they find the outside world impacting their private one in ways which can only end in tragedy and horror…

Moreover, just where exactly did the plans for the ghastly Squirrel Machine come from…?

Visually reminiscent of the best of Rick Geary, this is nevertheless a singularly surreal and mannered design; a highly charged, subtly disturbing delusion that will chill and upset and possibly even outrage many readers.

It is also compelling, seductive, sublimely quirky and nigh-impossible to forget. As long as you’re an adult and braced for the unexpected, expect this to be one of the best books you’ll read this century – or any other…

Out of print since 2009, The Squirrel Machine has now been remastered and released in an accessible paperback edition, just in time to disturb the sleep of a new generation of fear fans just as the winter nights draw in…

© 2013 Fantagraphics Books. Contents © 2009 Hans Rickheit. All Rights Reserved.

Win’s Perfect Present Alert: For him or her or even “it” as long as they’re mature enough to handle it…10/10

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Heroic Tales: The Bill Everett Archives volume 2


By Bill Everett and others, edited and complied by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-600-3

Thanks to modern technology there is a superabundance of collections featuring the works of too-long ignored founding fathers and lost masters of American comic books. A magnificent case in point is this second superb chronicle revisiting the incredible gifts of one of the greatest draughtsmen and yarn-spinners the industry has ever seen.

You could save some time and trouble by simply buying the book now rather than waste your valuable off-hours reading my blather, but since I’m keen to carp on anyway feel free to accompany me as I delineate just why this tome needs to join the books on your “favourites” shelf.

He was a direct descendent and namesake of iconoclastic poet and artist William Blake. His tragic life and awe-inspiring body of work – Bill was possibly the most technically accomplished artist in US comicbook industry – reveals how a man of privilege and astonishing pedigree was wracked by illness, an addictive personality (especially alcoholism) and sheer bad luck, nevertheless shaped an art-form and left twin legacies: an incredible body of superlative stories and art, and, more importantly, saved many broken lives saved by becoming a dedicated mentor for Alcoholics Anonymous in his later years.

William Blake Everett was born in 1917 into a wealthy and prestigious New England family. Bright and precocious, he contracted Tuberculosis when he was twelve and was dispatched to arid Arizona to recuperate.

Thus began a life-long affair with the cowboy lifestyle: a hard-drinking, smoking, tall-tale telling breed locked in a war against self-destruction, described in the fact-filled, picture-packed Introduction by Blake Bell which covers ‘The Early Years of Comics: 1938-1942’, ‘The Birth of Marvel Comics’ and ‘The Comic Book Production System’, before ‘The Heroes’ precedes a full-colour selection of incredible prototypical adventure champions with a brief essay on the set-up of Centaur Comics, Novelty Press, Eastern Color Printing, Hillman and Lev Gleason Publications…

Accompanied by the covers for Amazing Mystery Funnies volume 2 #3, 5 and 6 (March, May & June 1939, Centaur) are three outer space exploits of futuristic trouble shooter Skyrocket Steele, whilst Tibetan-trained superhero Amazing-Man offers a transformative triptych of titanic tales spanning war-torn Europe, augmented by the covers to Amazing-Man Comics #9-11 February-April 1940.

Everett’s deeply held western dreams are covered next with a brace of rootin’ tootin’ yarns starring Bull’s-Eye Bill from Novelty Press’ Target Comics #3-4 (April & May 1940) whilst from #7-9 (August-October 1940), the author smoothly switched to sophisticated suspense with master of disguise The Chameleon crushing contemporary criminals in scintillating escapades from Target Comics’ answer to The Saint, the Falcon and the Lone Wolf.

Thanks to his breakthrough Sub-Mariner sagas Everett was inextricably linked to water-based action, and Eastern Comics hired him to create human waterspout Bob Blake, Hydroman for the bimonthly Reg’lar Fellers Heroic Comics. Here, spanning issues # 6-9 (May-November 1941, with the covers for #6 and 7), are four spectacular, eerie, offbeat exploits, covering an extended battle against foreign spies and American Fifth Columnists, after which Red Reed in the Americas! (created by Bob Davis & Fitz) offers the first two chapters in a political thriller wherein a college student and his pals head South of the Border to fight Nazi-backed sedition and tyranny in a stunning tour de force first seen in Lev Gleason’s Silver Streak Comics #20 & 21 (April & May 1942).

A section of Miscellaneous and text illustrations follows, blending Western spot drawings with the eye-catching covers from Amazing Mystery Funnies volume 2 #18, Target Comics #5 and 6, Blue Bolt (vol. 1 #11, vol. 2 #1, 2 and 3) and Famous Funnies #85.

The Humorous and More describes Everett’s forays into other markets: niche sectors such as licensed comics, comedy and romance, and even returns to pulp and magazine illustration as he strove to stay one step ahead of a constantly shifting market and his own growing reputation for binges and unreliability.

‘What’s With the Crosbys?’ is a superbly rendered gossip strip from Famous Stars #2 (1950, Ziff-Davis) whilst a stunning monochrome girly-pin-up of ‘Snafu’s Lovely Ladies’ (from Snafu #3 Marvel, March 1956), and the cover of Adventures of the Big Boy #1 (also Marvel, from the same month) lead into the Back Cover of Cracked #6 (December 1958, Major Magazines) and other visual features from the Mad imitator as well as the colour cover to less successful rip-off Zany (#3, from March 1959).

Everett’s staggering ability to draw beautiful women plays well in the complete romance strip ‘Love Knows No Rules’ (Personal Love #24, November 1953 Eastern Color), and this section concludes with a gritty black and white title page piece from combat pulp War Stories #1, courtesy of Marvel’s parent company Magazine Management, September 1952.

The Horror concentrates on the post-superhero passion for scary stories: an arena where Bill Everett absolutely shone like a diamond. For over a decade he brought a sheen of irresistible quality to the generally second-rate chillers Timely/Atlas/Marvel generated in competition with genre front-runners EC Comics. It’s easy to see how they could compete and even outlive their gritty, gore-soaked competitor, with such lush and lurid examples of covers and chillingly beautiful interior pages…

Following a third informative background essay detailing his life until its cruelly early end in 1973, a choice selection of his least known and celebrated efforts opens with tale of terror ‘Hangman’s House’ (Suspense #5, November, 1950): a grim confrontation with Satanic evil, followed by futuristic Cold War shocker ‘I Deal With Murder!’ and a visit to a dark carnival of purely human wickedness in ‘Felix the Great’ (both culled from Suspense #6, January 1951).

Adventures into Weird Worlds #4 (Spring 1952) offered a laconic, sardonic glimpse into ‘The Face of Death’, whilst from the next issue (April 1952) ‘Don’t Bury Me Deep’ tapped untold depths of tension in a moodily mordant exploration of fear and premature burial. Hard on the heels of the cover to Journey Into Unknown Worlds #14 (December 1952) comes one of its interior shockers as ‘The Scarecrow’ helped an aged couple solve their mortgage problems in a most unusual manner.

The Marvel madness then concludes with a cautionary tale of ‘That Crazy Car’ from Journey into Mystery #20, December 1954, concluding a far too brief sojourn amidst arguably Everest’s most accomplished works and most professionally adept period.

This magnificent collection ends with a gallery of pages and one complete tale from the end of his career; selected from an even more uninhibited publisher attempting to cash in on the adult horror market opened by Warren Publishing with Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella.

Skywald was formed by industry veteran Israel Waldman and Everett’s old friend Sol Brodsky, tapping into the burgeoning black and white market with mature-reader and supernatural magazines Hell-Rider, Crime Machine, Nightmare, Psycho and Scream. Offered an “in” Everett produced incredible pin-ups (included here are three from Nightmare (#1, 2 & 4, December 1970-June 1971), ‘A Psycho Scene’ (Psycho #5, November, 1971) a stunning werewolf pin-up from Psycho #6 and one of revived Golden Age monstrosity ‘The Heap’ from Psycho #4.

Most welcome, however, is a magnificent 10-page monochrome masterpiece of gothic mystery ‘The Man Who Stole Eternity’ from Psycho #3, May, 1971.

Although telling, even revelatory and concluding in a happy ending of sorts, what this book really celebrates is not the life but the astounding versatility of Bill Everett. A gifted, driven man, he was a born storyteller with the unparalleled ability to make all his imaginary worlds hyper-real; and for nearly five decades his incredible art and wondrous stories enthralled and enchanted everybody lucky enough to read them.

© 2013 Fantagraphics Books. Text © 2013 Blake Bell. All art © its respective owners and holders. All rights reserved.
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for art lovers, Marvel Zombies and addicts of pure comics magic… 9/10

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Pale Reflections


By Andi Watson, Doug Petrie, Cliff Richards & Joe Pimentel (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-236-6

Having conquered television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer began a similar crusade with the far harder to please comicbook audiences. Launched in 1998 and offering smart, sassy tales to accompany the funny, action-packed and mega-cool onscreen entertainment, the series began in an original graphic novel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Dust Waltz) before debuting in a monthly series.

She quickly became a major draw for publisher Dark Horse – whose line of licensed comicbook successes included Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Aliens and Predator – and her exploits were substantially supplemented by a profusion of short stories in the company’s showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents and other venues.

Scripted primarily by Andi Watson, this particular UK Titan Books edition – with depiction and delineation from Cliff Richards & Joe Pimentel – features stories set during TV Season 3 and re-presents issues #17-19 (January through March 2000), as well as a delicious and timely morsel first seen in Dark Horse Presents #141, March 1999.

Check your facts here: Buffy Summers was a gormless charm-free cheerleaderValley Girl until the night when she inexplicably turned into a hyper-strong, impossibly durable monster-killer.

After being stalked by a creepy old coot from a secret society of Watchers she discovered that she was the most recent recipient of a millennial mystic curse which transformed mortal maids into living death-machines to all things undead arcane or uncanny: a Slayer.

Moving with her mom to typical California hamlet Sunnydale, Buffy then learned her new hometown was located on the edge of an eldritch gateway known to the unhallowed as The Hellmouth.

Enrolling at Sunnydale High Buffy made some friends and, schooled by new Watcher Rupert Giles, conducted a never-ending war on devils, demons and every shade of predatory supernatural species inexorably drawn to the area…

This slim supernal compilation at last concludes ‘Bad Blood’ – an extended storyline which pitted the daring, darling “Scooby Gang” against ambitious, narcissistic psycho-killer vampire Selke and her new breed of modified demonic thralls.

When vain Selke’s face was ruined in battle she naturally sought out a plastic surgeon. Dr. Flitter took up her cause, restoring and improving the vampire with the promise of immortality as his oft-postponed reward.

However, since scientific procedures didn’t work, he resorted to magic and his researches found a way to turn vampire blood into a super-steroid for Selke and her chosen brood. Now she and her newly-minted children of the night hunt not only humans for food, but other vampires to provide the raw ingredients of the Bad Blood serum…

Despite a rather full dance card, however, Selke cannot forget what Buffy did and is increasingly obsessed with making the Slayer suffer…

Selke’s über-vamps are also making much mischief, and Buffy and recently restored undead lover Angel are finding them almost impossible to destroy…

As a nocturnal civil war breaks out between Selke’s squad and the town’s “normal” vampires, Selke urges Flitter to use the blood to make a Slayer antipersonnel weapon – a sorcerous clone designed to hunt down and slaughter the original…

The saga picks up in ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’ as Willow, Cordelia, Oz, Xander and Buffy are forced to join in school-type activities by building a float for an upcoming parade. Angel, meanwhile, has captured one of Selke’s new ‘Roid Rage Vamps and started obtaining answers in a manner most un-heroic…

On the midnight streets, Buffy is ambushed by her mystic clone and, after a blistering battle, loses. Elsewhere Selke, unaware that a new faction has sabotaged her modified blood supply, gorges herself on the foul brew…

After disposing of Buffy’s body down a handy manhole, the doppelganger attempts to infiltrate the Scooby Gang, but although she has the Slayer’s memories, her attitudes are seriously skewed. For instance, her knowledge of fashion rivals Cordie’s…

Tensions rise in ‘She’s No Lady’ as the clone starts to degrade. Born of Bad Blood, she casts no reflection and can’t see her face, but once she notices the flesh of her shoulder coming off she heads straight back to Doc Flitter…

The cosmetic alchemist has already discovered that someone has adulterated his buckets of blood and Selke is completely out of control when the clone arrives, leaking from many lesions.

None of them are aware that under Sunnydale Buffy is slowly recuperating, assisted by a shambling earlier prototype previously discarded by Flitter.

As Angel sneaks in and destroys the reservoir of augmented blood, the raging, oblivious Selke orders the duplicate to fetch Buffy’s body and prove she’s dead…

The gory carnival of chaos concludes in ‘Old Friend’ as the clone confronts the Slayer and her earlier incarnation in the sewers, whilst above ground Willow and Giles examine “Buffy’s” blood on a discarded parade costume and uncover the awful truth…

When Selke sees the decimation wrought by Angel, she goes berserk, body rapidly mutating into monstrosity, just as the long-awaited procession begins through Sunnydale. Her depredations are interrupted by the battered but victorious Buffy who spectacularly destroys Selke and ends the Bad Blood menace forever.

However in the shadows, deadly demon lovers Spike and Drusilla fade from sight, taking their new toy Dr. Flitter with them…

Supplemented by the usual wealth of photos and covers by Jeff Matsuda, John Sibal, Randy Green & Andy Owens, this chronicle also includes ‘Killing Time’ – a short adventure by Doug Petrie, Richards and Pimentel wherein three sulky Goth girls manifest chronal ravager Ragginor and the Slayer has to defeat the demon before all time ends…

Here is another superbly accessible magical fight-fest – even for those unfamiliar with the vast backstory: a creepy chronicle of short stirring sagas as easily enjoyed by the most callow neophyte as by any dedicated devotee.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ™ & © 2000 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Zombillenium: Volume 1: Gretchen


By Arthur de Pins (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-734-8

I’m feeling a zeitgeist coming on: seditiously mature and subversively ironic takes on classical movie monster madness presented as horror-comedies in the manner of the Addams Family (or assorted Tim Burton features in the vein of Corpse Bride) to be enjoyed by older kids as well as imaginative grown-ups.

Latest candidate for the swift-swelling category is a superb and deliciously arch Franco-Belgian cross between films like Hotel Transylvania and Igor and such graphic narrative masterpieces as Boneyard, Rip M.D. and especially The Littlest Pirate King which combine pop-cultural archetypes with smart and sassy contemporary insouciance.

Arthur de Pins is a British-born French filmmaker, commercial artist and Bande Dessin̩es creator whose strips Рsuch as the adult comedy Peccadilloes (AKA Cute Sins) and On the Crab Рhave appeared in Fluide Glacial and Max.

Zombill̩nium began serialisation in Spirou #3698 (2009) and has filled three albums to date courtesy of Dupuis Рthe first of which has just been released in English thanks to Canadian publisher NBM.

Rendered in a beguiling animated cartoon style, the saga opens with a morose hitchhiker in a hoodie, having no luck at all getting a ride. Eventually Aton is picked up by a vampire and skeleton who offer to take the dejected 5000-year old mummy back to the unique theme park which employs – and in fact owns – them all…

Zombillenium is a magical entertainment experience celebrating all aspects of horror and the supernatural, where families can enjoy a happy day out rubbing shoulders with werewolves and witches and all manner of bogeymen. Of course, they wouldn’t laugh so much if they knew all those monsters were real…

Bloodsucking Francis  and bony Sirius are still heatedly trying to talk the deceased Egyptian -who walked because he was fed up working the cotton-candy concession for what seemed like eternity – out of thumbing all the way back to Cairo when a moment’s inattention leads to their car mowing down a distracted pedestrian.

The mortal is a goner, and without a moment’s hesitation Park Director Francis Von Bloodt takes a bite and finds his new confectionery seller…

The reasons Aurelian Zahner wasn’t paying attention were many. His wife was cheating on him, and took their child away. He had just tried to rob a bar in broad daylight. His gun had somehow turned into a banana. Worst of all, the odd young British woman with the enigmatic smile had told him to grow up before glowing blue and making everybody in the bar forget him…

Later he saw her at Zombillenium, after the giant werewolf bit him too, saying the place had enough vampires already. Things got a bit hazy after that, what with Francis disagreeing and biting him some more.

Her name was Gretchen and she was a witch and she had finally stopped the wolf and the bat biting him in some bizarre game of tit-for-tat…

With nobody quite sure what kind of monster he now was, Aurelian signed his contract, was given the induction tour by Aton – who considered himself a bit of a joker – and set to work selling the sticky stuff to the oblivious punters…

At least they were oblivious until a little old lady smuggled in her little doggie and triggered a bizarre and barely concealable transformation in the terrified Zahner that took even the most venerable and jaded monsters by surprise…

Despite the incredible power of the Zombie trade union, the only way out of a Zombillenium contract is the True Death, and Francis is actually in the process of terminating Aurelian when a call from the park’s enigmatic owner inexplicably gives the hapless fool another chance…

Slowly Zahner adapts to his new indentured (un)life, with Gretchen – who is “only” an intern at the park – finding time to show him the ropes and bring him up to speed in this most inhospitable working environment. Moreover the conditions are about to get much worse: Zombillenium is one of the least profitable theme-parks in the world and the Board are threatening to make some draconian changes…

For some reason the Zombie shop stewards blame Aurelian and are determined to drive him out. A slim ray of hope lights up the mixed-up monster newbie’s life however, when Gretchen tells him her life-story, reveals what he has become and explains what she is really doing at the Park.

The big boob has no idea what and how much she still hasn’t told him…

Sly, smart, sexy and hilarious, Zombillenium achieves that spectacular trick of marrying slapstick with satire in a manner reminiscent of Asterix and Cerebus the Aardvark, whilst easily treading its own path. This is going to a big breakout comics series and you’ll curse yourself for missing out.

So don’t…
© Dupuis 2010.