Category: Horror Stories

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Angel: The Hollower


By Christopher Golden, Hector Gomez & Sandu Florea (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-163-7

These days a ingenuous girl loving an undead bloodsucker is so trite and overused it is a subject of parody and jest, but not so long ago the concept was relatively fresh and enticing…

For an entire generation, their first brush with the idea came courtesy of a landmark TV show. Buffy the Vampire Slayer began her charismatic career after a clueless cheerleaderValley Girl teen suddenly turned into an indomitable monster-killer: latest winner of an unpredictable mystic/genetic lottery which transformed unsuspecting mortal maids into human killing machines and martial arts masters…

The cult series and its assorted media spin-offs refocused the zeitgeist and, since Dark Horse Comics’ clever, witty graphic interpretation is what interests me most, here’s a look at one of their earliest sidebar projects.

Once the company secured the strip licensing rights, they began generating an engaging regular series, a welter of original graphic novels, spin-offs, specials and numerous miniseries.

Buffy Summers lived in the small California hamlet of Sunnydale on the edge of a paranormal portal to the Nether Realms dubbed The Hellmouth, where 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 referring to himself as Angel…

Eventually he was revealed as a good vampire – one who possessed a soul – and he and the Summers girl fell in love. Sadly that broke the spell which made 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.

Although Angel was eventually restored thanks to the intervention of Buffy and Co, he had briefly carved a savage swathe through town – ghastly even by Sunnydale’s standards – and was left burdened with a double dose of paralysing guilt and faced every night the vigilant, fearful suspicions of his human allies…

Angel eventually won his own TV franchise, but long before that he had graduated from romantic interest/arch enemy into his own 3-issue tryout miniseries. Angel: The Hollower was released from May to July 1999 and detailed how, even after reverting to exquisite evil before being redeemed again, his past would always be there to haunt him…

This British Titan Books edition commences with an Introduction by scripter Christopher Golden (and ends with a light-hearted interview with original series cover-artist Jeff Matsuda) before the action opens with ‘Cursed!’ by Golden, Hector Gomez & Sandu Florea (originally seen in anthology Dark Horse Presents #141, March 1999) wherein the Brooding Bad Boy regales Buffy with the horrific events that followed his rebirth as a bloodsucker in Ireland circa 1753.

That handy origin recap concluded, the main event – set during the TV show’s third season – kicks off in present-day San Francisco where a pair of vampires is attacked by a monstrous tentacled horror. Veteran vamp Catherine barely escapes with her unlife and, having seen the horror before, knows there’s only one being she can turn to…

In Sunnydale, Buffy and Angel have resumed their after-dark partnership, even though Giles and the rest of her in-the-know friends are still wary of the recently re-redeemed night-stalker. However once their monster-killing “date” ends Angel is jumped by a band of fangers and sees a girl he slaughtered and “turned” over a century past…

Although their sworn enemy, his undead captors treat Angel with kid gloves. Catherine only wants to talk and she wants to talk about The Hollower…

In a flashback, the scene turns to Vienna in 1892 where Angelus and his pack-mates Spike and Drusilla were amongst many vampires preying on the populace in complete security, oblivious and immune to all threat or challenge.

However, soon after turning Catherine, Angelus was confronted by starving, terrified vampires fleeing from some unimaginable horror that actually preyed on bloodsuckers…

Back in the now, Catherine reminds her sire of the cost the last time the creature manifested and warns him the thing has undoubtedly tracked her to Sunnydale…

At last convinced, Angel agrees to a truce and prepares to battle the thing again. Unfortunately this is something he cannot share with Buffy…

In end-of-the-century Austria the first fight against the Hollower unsatisfactorily stalled with only a few undead survivors, whilst now in Sunnydale Angel secretly consults eldritch expert Giles and learns the truth about the beast. He also discovers that, blithely unaware, Buffy is already hunting a huge, subterranean tentacled horror that prefers vamps to human meals…

Watcher archives reveal a chilling scenario. Vampires are actually human corpses with the departed soul replaced by a reanimating demon, using blood to fuel the composite creature. The Hollower however, sucks out those demonic riders and ingests them. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, except once it’s full – about 3,000 demons is its limit – the horror explosively regurgitates them and the partially digested devils will infect the nearest LIVING body.

If the Hollower succeeds in satiating itself in vampire-infested Sunnydale and subsequently pops, most of the town’s mortal souls will suddenly become rabid, blood-crazed killers…

Engaged in the hunt, Buffy however can’t shift a nagging and unworthy notion: if the Hollower sucks out the vampire part of Angel, will she be left with a normal human lover…?

Fast and furious, this tale of two cities and times is a solid supernatural thriller big on action and intriguingly presented. Definitely prescribed for anybody suffering a surfeit of lovestruck face-suckers and kissypoo predators – which last really should know better at their age…
Angel ™ & © 2000 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Ghosts and Ruins


By Ben Catmull (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-678-2

If you know the works of Sidney Sime and Edward Gorey and the horror comics of Bernie Wrightson and Michael Kaluta or love to peer through your locked fingers at the films of Tim Burton or the creepy backgrounds in Charles Addams cartoons, you’re clearly an aficionado of silly, spooky business and know mordant fantasy plays best when played for laughs.

With that in mind, you might be interested in a new black-&-white coffee-table art book from cartoonist Ben Catmull (Monster Parade, Paper Theater) which celebrates the stuff of nauseating, stomach-churning terror and sinister, creeping suspense in a series of eerie illustrated plates crafted in scratchboard on masonite for extra darkness!

All that arcane art is wedded to epigrammatic prose snippets to comprise tantalising skeletons of stories best left untold and consequences unimaginable…

This engrossing landscape hardback (268 x 222mm) combines gloomy gothic imagery with wry and witty updates on uncanny situations in a procession of locations best left well enough alone, beginning with six views of the dank domicile of diabolical ‘Drowned Shelley’ and a single glimpse of ‘The Buried House’.

A queasy quartet then divulges the doings of the ‘The Disgusting Garden’ after which one peek at ‘The Secluded House’ leads inexorably to a triptych revealing ‘The Woman Outside the Window’ and four frames of ‘Wandering Smoke’. ‘The Order of the Shadowy Finger’ – five in full – gives way to three glimpses of ‘The Lighthouse’, a visit to a domicile all ‘Hair and Earwigs’ and thence to numerous views of the masterpieces hewn by horrific revenant ‘The Sculptor’…

A demonic carpenter once concocted a ‘Labyrinth of Junk’, but that was as nothing compared to the sheer terror of ‘The Crawling House’ and the ghastly practises of a ‘Lonely Old Spinster’…

Mordantly blending bleak, spectral dread and anxious anticipation with classical scary scenarios, this terrifying tease is a sheer delight no lover of Dark Art could conceivably resist…

© 2013 Ben Catmull. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics. All rights reserved.
Ghosts and Ruins will be released on September 12th 2013.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Uninvited Guests


By Andi Watson, Dan Brereton, Hector Gomez & Sandu Florea (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-140-3

Having conquered television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer began a similar campaign with her monthly comicbook, launched in 1998 and offering smart, sassy tales which perfectly complimented the funny, action-packed and Tres Hip onscreen entertainment.

Following an original graphic novel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Dust Waltz) the character 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 solo exploits were substantially supplemented by many short stories in the company’s showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents and other venues.

This particular UK Titan Books edition – with depiction and delineation from Hector Gomez & Sandu Florea – features more stories set during TV Season 2 and collects issues #4-7 of the Dark Horse comicbook, scripted by Andi Watson who also provides an endearing illustrated Introduction before opening with a minor seasonal sensation…

‘White Christmas’ finds the Slayer strapped for cash and forced to work at the local Mall to make money for gifts and a new party dress.

However, as Sunnydale is situated on The Hellmouth and Buffy is a certified weirdness magnet, her shifts at The Popsicle Parlor inevitably lead to demon-denting overtime when she discovers her boss Mr. Richter spending all his idle moments in the Big Freezer summoning infuriating ice imps and giant killer Frost Elementals…

Having survived that cataclysmic Yule duel relatively unscathed, the Scooby Gang – Willow, Cordelia, Oz, Xander and Buffy – look forward to a ‘Happy New Year’ party, until dusty, crusty Lore Librarian (and Buffy’s supernature tutor) Giles discovers a gigantic hell-hound raiding his book stacks and the crazy kids are set hot on its heels.

The trail leads to doomed, damned lovers, a guiltily romantic triangle and an ancient curse from witch-haunted Salem before the savage crescendo almost ends Willow’s life…

Xander found himself obsessed with pretty transfer student Cynthia in ‘New Kid on the Block Part 1’ (co-written with Dan Brereton), with his pathetic, fawning, drooling attentions cruelly mocked by his best friends – and rightly so….

His infantile ardour is hardly halted when the girls decide to have a slumber party even though he’s not invited. Determined not to miss out (and certainly not creepy at all), the hapless idiot decides to sneak into the night of nail varnish, romcoms and pink pyjamas but is horrified to discover that he’s not the only intruder…

Buffy, exhausted from staking a new band of bloodsuckers plaguing the town, is almost too late to save the day in ‘New Kid on the Block Part 2’, but after driving off the monster party-crashers, confers with noble vampire boyfriend Angel and realises that even though able to move around in daylight, Cyn might not be all she seems…

With covers by Gomez, Randy Green, Rick Ketchum, Arthur Adams and Joyce Chin, this is a stunning, enchanting mix of post-ironic Archie Comics hijinks and madcap magical martial arts mysteries, this batch of early Buffy yarns are pure, light-hearted rollercoaster thrills, spills and chills no comics fan could resist

Uninvited Guests is an easily accessible romp even if you’re not familiar 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 ™ & © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Crash Test Demons


By Andi Watson, Cliff Richards & Joe Pimentel (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-199-8

Soon after securing her status as a certified media sensation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer won her own monthly comicbook in 1998, with smart, suspenseful, action-packed yarns (in her own monthly series and fully supplemented by spin-off miniseries and short stories in showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents) which perfectly complemented the sensational, groundbreaking and so crucial TV show.

This slim and sinister compilation (I’m once more featuring the British Titan Books edition which features stories set during the third TV Season) continues an extended storyline which pitted the eclectic “Scooby Gang” against ambitious narcissistic psycho-killer vampire Selke and her new breed of modified demonic thralls.

The ongoing ‘Bad Blood’ saga is written as ever by Andi Watson and illustrated by newcomers Cliff Richards & Joe Pimentel, with this volume collecting issues #13-15 (of the monthly Buffy the Vampire Slayer from September-November 1999).

As well as the usual wealth of covers, pinups and photos by Richards, Dave Stewart, Bennett, Jeff Matsuda & John Sibal, this chronicle also includes as bonus an interview with the Brazilian penciller, stuffed with his character designs and many un-inked pages of glorious art.

In case you’re a stranger to this dimension: Buffy Summers was an addle-pated cheerleader Valley Girl and total waste of teen protein until she inexplicably turned into a hyper-strong, impossibly durable monster-killer.

She learned – after being accosted by an old codger from a secret society of Watchers – that she was the most recent recipient of a meandering mystic lottery which transformed mortal maids into living death-machines for all things supernatural: a Slayer.

Moving with her recently divorced mom to the small California hamlet of Sunnydale, located on the edge of a arcane portal dubbed The Hellmouth, Buffy made a few close friends and, with her newest cult-appointed mentor Rupert Giles, proceeded with her never-ending war on devils, demons and every predatory species of terror inexorably drawn to the area…

Following a handy “previously page”, the wise-cracking action kicks off with ”Delia’s Gone’ as formerly disfigured and depleted vampire Selke pays a visit to local undead gang-boss Rouleau.

The last time he saw – and spurned – her, she was a pathetic, mutilated bag of scars and bile, but now she is both beautiful and overwhelmingly powerful – and bears a grudge…

Nobody knows that she has found a plastic surgeon with a passion for alchemy and no morals at all. Dr. Flitter has taken up Selke’s cause, restoring and improving her with the promise of immortality as his oft-postponed reward.

However, since his normal scientific procedures didn’t work, he resorted to books of magic for a solution where his researches turned up a way to turn vampire blood into a super-steroid for Selke and her “offspring”. Now she and her newly-minted children of the night hunt not only humans for food, but vampires for fuel…

Moreover she is still obsessed with making the Slayer suffer…

Meanwhile, in a vain semblance of normal teen activities, the Scooby Gang – Cordelia, Oz, Xander and Buffy – coach brainy, nervous Willow for an upcoming televised inter-school quiz show. Things start to come unglued when Selke incidentally consumes Sunnydale High’s resident nerd Lyle and Cordy, desperate to change her bimbo image, steals a magic charm from Giles to become a voracious consumer of facts. Sadly there’s no off-switch and ‘Delia’s brain quickly begins to overload…

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

‘Love Sick Blues’ sees a nocturnal civil war break out between Selke’s squad and the town’s regular fangers. Buffy’s night patrols are crazily broken up by vampires constantly attempting to capture and drain each other, but things take a bleak dark turn when deadly demon lovers Spike and Drusilla return, keen on turning the chaos to their own decadently amused advantage…

Soon their unique talents for obtaining information have led them to the secret of “bad blood”, but Selke and Flitter are oblivious to the new threat to their schemes. The cosmetic alchemist has discovered a way of mystically cloning their own “Dark Slayer” to take care of Buffy, and Selke wants one right now!

Sadly Flitter’s first attempts are woefully inadequate and promptly discarded… even the one that was still sort-of alive…

Even Buffy’s daylight problems are insane. Sleazy, lusty Todd once spread very nasty rumours about her before he temporarily turned into a girl, but now he’s male again he’s fallen desperately in love with the girl he wronged. His misplaced passion and rekindled conscience cost him his life…

Events reach crisis point in ‘Lost Highway’ as the war between leeches escalates, whilst on a rare night off from slaying, Buffy hits one of Selke’s pack with her mom’s (stolen) car and is subsequently ambushed by the whole mob. Even as she impossibly stakes them all, in a hidden lab, Flitter decants his masterpiece – a Summers simulacrum physically identical to and apparently far superior to The Slayer…

To Be Continued…

Engaging, witty, darkly light and fluffy, this fast and furious fists-flying action extravaganza rockets along at a breakneck pace, capturing the smart, intoxicating spirit of the TV show. Although this is only the middle section of the Bad Blood epic, the yarns here are all easily accessible even if you’re unfamiliar with the vast backstory, making this one more terrific thriller 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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X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Mutants vs. Vampires


By Chuck Kim, Simon Spurrier, Duane Swierczynski, Chris Claremont, Bill Sienkiewicz & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5229-3

All major comics publishing events have satellite specials these days and the X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – which ran from July 2010 to May 2011 in selected Marvel titles – was no exception. Thus, this supplementary volume, gathering the One-shots Storm & Gambit, Smoke & Blood and Blade, plus the contents of the anthologized miniseries X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Mutants vs. Vampires, makes for a handy and beguiling adjunct to the main feature.

The sinister suspense begins with X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Storm & Gambit (by Chuck Kim, Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, Jaime Mendoza, Wayne Faucher, Al Vey, Victor Olazaba & Mark Irwin) as the mutant’s professional thieves are dispatched to the Mediterranean to steal Dracula’s headless corpse from an island infested with vampires.

When the stealthy duo are detected and their craft shot down, Storm quickly realises that they have an unseen ally on the island of blood. This proves crucial as they battle through legions of lychs to ultimate success – but the price of his aid might well be her soul…

Simon Spurrier & Gabriel Hernandez Walta then focus on the frustrations of super-genius Doctor Nemesis (and his X-Club associates Kavita Rao and Madison Jeffries) in X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Smoke & Blood.

Refusing to acknowledge something as stupid and primitive as the supernatural, Nemesis and his team furiously experiment on a captured vampire warrior, also seeking a cure for the infected victims slowly turning into evil blood-suckers in the drastically overstretched laboratories.

His efforts are constantly, inexplicably frustrated until the monster breaks free and the entire research station goes into lethal lockdown – with the doctor and his colleagues on the wrong side of the hermetically sealed walls…

Men: Curse of the Mutants – Blade follows as writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Tim Green provide a revelatory prequel. ‘The Light at the End’ finds the demi-human hero uncovering a covert campaign to eradicate all vampire hunters and drawn into a trap where day-walking undead slaughter all his allies. Barely escaping the net of Xarus, the badly rattled sole survivor heads towards San Francisco and an unlikely alliance…

The two issues of X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Mutants vs. Vampires comprise a selection of short yarns starring many of the huge mutant cast in solo action, opening with ‘From Husk Til Dawn’ by James Asmus & Tom Raney, wherein the hard-body shapeshifter sets herself up as a walking honey – or is that blood? – trap to take vampires off the streets of San Francisco, one fanger at a time.

Christopher Sequeira & Sana Takeda then go all disco nostalgic as Dazzler meets a band of vampires who have all been grooving and chilling since they died during the glitter-balled, star-spangled Seventies in ‘I’m Gonna Stake You, Sucka’…

Peter David & Mick Bertilorenzi continue in darkly comedic vein with ‘Rue Blood’ as Rogue confronts a somehow familiar bloodsucker and experiences an unsuspected karmic connection with the tragic, beautiful blood-beast, after which Rob Williams & Doug Braithwaite reveal a grim secret and lost comrade from Magneto’s past in ‘Survivors’…

From issue #2 ‘Flesh, Fangs and Burnt Rubber’ by Mike Benson & Mark Texeira pits Gambit against a marauding gang of undead biker chicks from Hell, whilst in ‘Call Me Santo’ by Spurrier & Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Rockslide and Armor face the largest vampire ever turned whilst transporting food and supplies to Utopia.

Next Howard Chaykin goes ‘Skin Deep’ to reveal how Vietnamese mutant Karma uncovers a cunning fanged predator who had discovered how to hunt safely and with her victims’ tacit consent…

The last story, by Mike W. Barr & Agustin Padilla, stars The Angel in ‘Voices’ wherein the winged wonder hunts down a once-human beast who satisfies his drive to kill by only consuming murderers. As Angel constantly struggles against the dark desires programmed into him by the mutant horror Apocalypse, he can only wonder just who is the greatest monster here?

Following pencilled pages, sketches and roughs from Mico Suayan and Bachalo, plus character designs by Hernandez Walta, the story portion concludes with ‘Night Screams!’ by Chris Claremont, Bill Sienkiewicz & Bob Wiacek (from Uncanny X-Men #159, July 1982) relating the mutant heroes’ first encounter with the lord of vampires.

After Dracula ambushes Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine must race the dawn to confront her assailant and effect a cure before the Windrider becomes undead forever…

With covers and variants by Suayan, Bachalo, Townsend, Christina Strain, Clayton Crain, Dave Wilkins, Nick Bradshaw, Jim Charalampidis and Sienkiewicz, this is a splendidly dark selection of Costumed Dramas which will delight both dedicated fans and casual readers alike. Just finish it before the sun sets…
© 1982, 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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X-Men: Curse of the Mutants


By Victor Gischler, Paco Medina, Juan Vlasco & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4847-0

With a property as vast and valuable as the X-Men, change is a necessarily good thing, even if you sometimes need a scorecard to keep up. This thoroughly entertaining read (collecting X-Men volume 2 #1-6 and text features from X-Men: Curse of the Mutants Saga and X-Men: Curse of the Mutants Spotlight from July 2010 to May 2011) keeps the baggage to a sustainable minimum for non-addicts and concentrates on delivering a tense and action-packed thriller heavy on conflict and light on extended sub-plots.

Sweetening the pot is a veritable feast of superb covers and variants by Medina, Vlasco, Adi Granov, Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales, Laura Martin, John Romita Jr., Dean White, Marte Gracia, Marko Djurdjevic and Mike Mayhew.

As the story opens most of the World’s remaining mutants are residing on an island in San FranciscoBay dubbed “Utopia” with X-Men team-leader Cyclops running the enclave like a kingdom…

The bizarre freaks are generally welcomed by the easygoing human population.

In other news: the planet’s assorted vampire clans have been recently united after centuries of internecine struggle by Xarus, second son of Dracula, who executed his formidable father to succeed to the supreme position of Lord of Vampires. The horrific heir is a meticulous planner and has even secured technology and magics which allow the undead to walk safely in sunlight…

When a nosferatu suicide-bomber explodes himself in a crowded San Francisco plaza his fiendishly re-engineered blood taints and compromises the shocked, stunned bystanders with a virus that inexorably infects and overwhelms everybody exposed to it. The recently united night-hunters have declared all-out war on their food-supply, bolstering their ranks without risking being hunted… and one of the first to succumb is veteran X-warrior Jubilee…

As the contagion spreads, Wolverine leads a scouting mission into the increasingly overrun city and discovers that the campaign is meticulously organised and extremely far advanced. Moreover the new vampire lord has planned carefully and ambitiously: a key tactic is to “turn” every mutant in Utopia, providing the would-be conqueror with a compliant army of super-powered, blood-sucking storm-troopers. Jubilee has already joined them…

Always genned-up on undead affairs, half-vampire, all-Hunter Blade joins the party and brings the embattled mutants up to speed, making them realise that they face impossible odds. With new vampires springing up everywhere Cyclops makes the seemingly suicidal decision to revive Dracula, over Blade’s strenuous objections.

…And then Wolverine finally succumbs to the manufactured virus and switches sides…

When the Children of the Night make their final assault against the assembled mutant heroes all seems lost… but Cyclops has a cunning plan…

The bonus features section begins with material from X-Men: Curse of the Mutants Saga; specifically ‘X-Men a Go-Go!’ wherein John Rhett Thomas, assisted by Michael Kronenberg, interviews event main scripter Victor Gischler, after which ‘We are The X-Men’ pictorially introduces the major players – mutant and otherwise – in a spectacular spread.

Then from X-Men: Curse of the Mutants Spotlight, Chris Arrant and Gischler discuss the aftermath of the event in ‘X-Men: Lifting the Curse’, Paco Medina pictorially reveals all in ‘Drawing Blood’, and ‘Blade: Curse of the Vampires!’ details the history and possible future of Marvel’s most famous night-stalker…

This is an exhilarating, exemplary romp that pushes all the right buttons, engagingly written by Gischler and entrancingly illustrated by Medina & Juan Vlasco. If you want fast, furious, grim ‘n’ gritty Fights ‘n’ Tights magic this is a perfect one-shop stop for your edification and delectation.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft


By various, edited by Scott Allie (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-108-0

Scary stories have always been a staple of comics, and anthology collections invariably offer fearsome fun and the biggest Boo for your buck so I’m taking a skittish peek at one that has definitely stood the test of time.

Following a bucolic Introduction by series Editor Scott Allie, this glorious hardback grimoire of ghoulish delights and funny fables opens with an illustrated extract from ‘Macbeth’ (guess witch bit) chillingly adapted by Tony Millionaire, after which comics and movie fans get a treat all their own.

This captivating “Book of…” mystery compilation is part of a series that spun out of Dark Horse Comics’ legendary monster-hit Hellboy, and ‘The Troll Witch’ by Mike Mignola presents a terrific vignette of the hulking demon foundling who visits Norway in 1963 and has a tense conversation with a very peculiar Wise-woman.

Next up is a classic prose short story by Weird Tales horror star Clark Ashton Smith. Illustrated by Gary Gianni, ‘Mother of Toads’ offers the chilling and ghastly feudal tale of a lusty peasant, love philtres and the consequences of cavorting with strange women who live far off the beaten track…

Editor Scott Allie and artists Paul Lee and Brian Horton briefly abandon their Devil’s Footprint series to recount the chilling choice of ‘The Flower Girl’ who, pushed to the limits by her diabolically spoiled and obnoxious little sister, is offered a vile solution by a neighbour with very dark secrets of her own…

Set in Louisiana in 1838 ‘The Gris-Gris’, by Jim & Ruth Keegan, blends the rich dark earth of voodoo with the theme of witchcraft as a cowardly Southern Gentleman picks the wrong crone to trifle with when trying to cheat his way out of a duel of honour, after which 1938 Mississippi hosts the ‘Golden Calf Blues’, by Mark Ricketts & Sean Phillips, exploring the power of an accursed guitar and the Devil’s Music to seduce the supposedly righteous…

‘The Truth About Witchcraft’ is an extended and fascinating interview with attorney, advocate and Wiccan High Priestess Phyllis Curott, after which the comics wonderment resumes with a stunning tale from the height of the infamous “Witch Trials” in ‘Salem and Mary Sibley’ by Scott Morse, before everything ends in an engaging and hilarious romp wherein the neighbourhood mutts and a deeply confused cat join forces to thwart the Forces of Darkness and the local coven of Crones in ‘Unfamiliar’, scripted by Evan Dorkin and magnificently rendered by Jill Thompson.

As anthologies go, horror and mystery are never out of style and collections like this serve as the ideal vehicle for pulling resistant readers into our world of comics. When they can be this diverse whilst maintaining such a staggering level of craft, variety and quality, they should be mandatory for any proselytizing fan, and hold pride of place on any aficionado’s bookshelf
Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft ™ and © 2004 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All interior stories and features © their respective copyright holders.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Bad Blood


By Andi Watson, Joe Bennett, Rick Ketchum & Jim Amash (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-179-3

Soon after establishing herself as a bona fide media sensation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer won her own monthly comicbook in 1998, with smart, suspenseful, action-packed yarns (in her own her monthly series and fully supplemented by spin-off miniseries and short stories in the company’s showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents) which perfectly complimented the sensational, groundbreaking and so utterly hip TV show.

This slim and sinister compilation (I’m once more featuring the British Titan Books edition and – if you’re asking – these stories are set during TV Season 3) collects the first issues of an extended storyline which found the eclectic teen team battling an honest-to-god arch enemy in the sorry shape of narcissistic vampire Selke, all courtesy of regular creative team Andi Watson, Joe Bennett & Rick Ketchum.

This volume collects issues #9-11 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (May-July 1999) and includes as a bonus a short complete adventure from that March’s Dark Horse Presents #141.

In case you’re a stranger to this dimension: Buffy Summers was a so-simple Valley Girl and teen cheerleader waste of carbon until she inexplicably turned overnight into a monster-killer. She soon discovered – after being contacted by a crusty curmudgeon from a secret society of Watchers – that she was the latest unwilling winner of a mystic, genetic lottery which transformed mortal maids into human killing machines of all things supernatural: Slayers.

Moving to the small California hamlet of Sunnydale, located on the edge of a mystic portal dubbed The Hellmouth, she made a few close friends and with her newest cult-appointed magical mentor Rupert Giles battled devils, demons and every predatory species of terror inexorably drawn to the area…

Following a handy “previously page” and both photo and drawn covers for the following tale, the action resumes with ‘Hey, Good Looking Part I’ as a rare romantic moment with recently restored undead lover Angel in the local cemetery is interrupted by a new type of threat. However this particular monster is too quick to be seen and apparently consumes corpses rather than living flesh…

Meanwhile in a dingy alley the formerly beautiful vampire Selke seethes. Even though her kind cast no reflections, she knows her previous clashes with the Slayer have destroyed not only her strength but also her sublime allure…

Even as Buffy’s mom idly considers cosmetic surgery to bolster her own fading youth, Selke accosts plastic surgeon Dr. Flitter, offering the challenge of a lifetime and unchanging, undead eternal life in return. Obsession with appearances seems to be epidemic in Sunnydale and when Buffy is approached by talent scout Lana she seriously considers her proposal to become a model. If only it doesn’t cut into her Slaying schedule… oh, and school of course…

Whilst Giles had been busy researching the thing that eats cadavers, Mrs. Summers had regained her equilibrium and decided against going under the knife, which was lucky as Flitter has taken up Selke’s offer to restore her. However as his normal procedures don’t work he’s resorting to old books of magic for a solution, and is keeping the impatient nosferatu complacent by feeding her his other clients…

The tale continues in ‘Hey, Good Looking Part II’ as Buffy prepares to battle what Giles calls “Ghouls” and faces a far worse, emotional, battering from the other models on her first day at work. Selke, meanwhile, fooling herself that Flitter’s efforts are working, has tried to recruit vampire allies from the town’s new undead overlord Rouleau and been humiliated.

Later that night as Angel and the Slayer finally eradicate the ghoul gang the furious Selke puts her increasing arcane cosmetologist on warning: succeed soon or die horribly… Issue #11 continues the themes of looks and sexual politics as sleazy musician Todd Dahl hits town with his band and starts looking for hotties to bed.

After the Slayer forcefully turns him down, Todd brags that he has bagged Buffy and goes on to insult and rebuff the more-than-willing teen witch Amy. Soon however the repulsive love-rat is treated to a scary look at the other side of the bed when he suddenly transforms into ‘A Boy Named Sue’…

Flitter meanwhile has intercepted a grimoire intended for Giles’ lore library and deduced a way to heal Selke and even hype-up the strength of her own bite-created offspring. Unfortunately, it involves preying upon other vampires to get the raw ingredients…

The direly dangerous process succeeds and a fully restored, deadlier than ever Selke triumphantly puts her plans into play. Soon everyone who ever crossed her will pay and pay and pay in blood and torment…

As well as a cover gallery by Bennett, Jeff Matsuda, John Sibal, Chris Bachalo & Art Thibert, this sleek, slim chronicle also contains an added story bonus. ‘Hello Moon’, written by Daniel Brereton & Christopher Golden, with art by Joe Bennett & Jim Amash (from Dark Horse Presents #141 from March 1999) is a wistful vignette wherein the Slayer attacks a monster on the beach but soon discovers that she has much in common with the troubled fish-man who also bears the weight of unwelcome responsibility for his endangered race. No sooner had these two champions made their peace though than a band of roving vamps attacked…

Engaging, witty, fun and cleverly concealing a strong message of tolerance and gracious acceptance, this pictorially powerful, fast-fists-flying action extravaganza rockets along at a breakneck pace, perfectly mimicking the smart, intoxicating spirit of the TV show. Although Bad Blood is only the first part of a much longer saga, this is still an easily accessible romp even if you’re not familiar with the vast backstory, another suspenseful thriller 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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Misery City


By K. I. Zachopoulos & Vassilis Gogtzilas (Markosia)
ISBN: 978-1-905692-81-1

For purists every literary genre is sacrosanct – unless you can come up with a way to mix or blend them with such style, verve and panache that something new is born which feels like it’s always been one if the gang…

Misery City is a dark, bleak and ferociously introspective comic that relates the cases of Max Murray, a dowdy, down-at-heel shamus walking the meanest streets imaginable, in a vast and ever-changing metropolis situated on the outskirts of Hell – and, no, that’s not poetic license or flowery prose, it’s a geography lesson…

Following an effusive Foreword from arch-stylist Sam Keith and an Introduction from big-league writer J. M. de Matteis, the first five issues of the comics series unfold in this pocket novel package: a stark, unrelenting procession of grimly trenchant case-files starring a shabby private eye just trying to get by uncovering other people’s secrets and make some sense of the most pitiless town in creation.

Of course he has a few secrets of his own…

The black parade begins on the ‘Night of the Corpse’ when the world-weary Max is attacked by a giant skeleton and has to use his beloved and handy handgun Fat Betty to end the undead animate. Times are both tough and weird so he doesn’t give it much thought before retiring to his dingy office to await a new client and case…

When the phone rings it’s that sexy waitress Pakita from the Bar. Max has had the serious hots for her forever, but his rising hopes take a dive when the mercurial Mexican only hires him to check up on her cheating boyfriend.

With heavy heart and azure cojones the gumshoe goes looking, utterly unaware that an old enemy has returned seeking vengeance. Professor Ego was penned in unimaginable torment because of Murray, and now that he’s out he’s wasting no time in sending a plague of devils to get some payback…

As a host of demonic clowns hunt the private detective, Max has found Pakita’s man. Seeing the faithless dog with another woman drives him crazy though and the shamus goes ballistic, beating the cheating Dick to a pulp. Appalled and repentant, Max then heads over to Pakita’s place to apologise and finds her gone, snatched by his long-forgotten foe.

Answering the ‘Call of Ego’ Max heads for the horror’s Tower hideout and a brutal showdown…

Despite his shoddy appearance, this PI is no dumb palooka. His secret vice is reading and his internal monologue is peppered with quotes and allusions from poets like Dante and Tennyson. They’re the only thing comforting him as ‘A Wooden Coffin for Max Murray part I’ finds him taking the Hell train to the worst part of MiseryCity for a surveillance job.

Horny as usual, Max is disappointed to discover what the owner of that sexy French voice on the phone looks like, but still agrees to check out the old abandoned timber-framed family house the tearful widow fears property developers want.

Maybe he should have been more suspicious, but the client’s stunning daughter Josephine had turned his head and all points south…

When he enters the ramshackle old pile a colossal zombie fiend attacks Max and, before he can react, the entire house explodes out of the ground and rockets into orbit…

Lost in space and out of options, the gumshoe reveals a few of his own incredible survival secrets destroying the monster (said client’s vengeful and very angry husband) in ‘A Wooden Coffin for Max Murray part II’ before escaping the timber trap and settling scores with the murderous she-devils.

It appears Max is on a first name basis with the Big Boss of the Inferno, and the head man is keen on renewing a satanic acquaintance with the understandably reluctant detective…

The malign mystery yarns conclude with a stunning surprise in ‘The Last Drag of a Pocket God’ as Max tracks down a puissant phantom with astounding delusions of grandeur. However, after sending Marty “The Voice” Coronado to his final rest, an uncomfortable conversation with Pakita forces him to confront his own long-suppressed thoughts and examine the illusions that keep him going on the pitiless streets of Misery City…

Potent targeted vulgarity and a brusque, verbally confrontational narrative style gives Kostas Zachopoulos’ manic scripts a supremely savage edge, whilst the freakish, surreal Horror-Noir milieu is perfectly captured by illustrator Vassilis Gogtzilas’ astoundingly frenetic art, delivered in a melange of assorted styles. This mean, moody and menacing chronicle is topped off with a host of powerful pin-ups and a cover art gallery to further disquiet and beguile the unwary reader.
Misery City ™ & © 2013 Kostas Zachopoulos, Vassilis Gogtzilas and Markosia Enterprises, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Remaining Sunlight


By Andi Watson, Joe Bennett & Rick Ketchum with J. L. van Meter & Luke Ross (Dark Horse/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-078-9

Fully established as a media sensation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted in her own monthly comicbook in 1998, with sharp, thrilling tales that perfectly complimented the sensational, groundbreaking and so, so cool TV show.

After debuting with an original graphic novel (see Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Dust Waltz) the character quickly became a major draw for publisher Dark Horse – whose many other licensed comicbook successes included Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Aliens and Predator – and her monthly exploits were frequently supplemented by short stories in the company’s showcase anthology Dark Horse Presents and other venues.

This premier compilation (I’m once more featuring the British Titan Books edition and – if you’re asking – the stories are all set during TV Season 2) collects the first three issues of the regular Dark Horse comicbook crafted by Andi Watson, Joe Bennett & Rick Ketchum.

Included as a bonus is the short story which was the Slayer’s very first comicbook appearance, taken from Dark Horse Presents Annual 1998, written by J.L. van Meter, with art by Luke Ross & Ketcham.

In case you’ve only just returned From Beyond the Veil: Buffy Summers was a clueless Valley Girl and hip teen cheerleader until she turned overnight into a monster-killer: latest winner of a mystic, genetic lottery which transformed mortal maids into human killing machines: Slayers.

Moving to the small California hamlet of Sunnydale, obliviously located on the edge of a mystic portal dubbed The Hellmouth, she, a close band of new friends and her cult-appointed magical mentor Rupert Giles battled devils, demons and every species of terror inexorably drawn to the area and who/what/which considered humanity a snack…

The action begins with ‘Wu-Tang Fang’ as, after another tedious school day Willow, Xander and Buffy blow off steam at local club The Bronze.

When a pack of Vampires attacks them on the way home, the Slayer easily deals with the ill-conceived assault but is afterwards confronted and threatened by a mysterious oriental figure in a cloak and straw hat.

It disappears without incident but Xander, fed up with being saved by a girl and following an all night kung fu movie marathon, enrols next day at a martial arts Dojo.

As he painfully finds his new sensei is a bullying brute, Buffy and Giles are discovering a string of martial artists killed by vampires. The standard searches of the Library’s lore-books turn up a name: San Sui of the Xiang River – an ancient wandering warrior who challenged fighters to duels and drank their blood when they lost…

However, after Xander’s teacher meets an horrific end courtesy of the mysterious stranger, San Sui is unprepared for Buffy, who takes out all the extra training she’s been forced to endure on his smug, undead ass…

The next issue covered the annual arcane imbecility of ‘Halloween’ in Sunnydale – a night when vamps generally stayed in due to the hordes of happy people wandering about. This time, however, a pack of smart young dead things decide to stock up on tasty human titbits for their enforced vacation…

One of them is scholarly stalwart Willow who was snatched after storming out of an argument with her folks. Since, like most of the older high-schoolers, Buffy is stuck with chaperoning little kids on the night, nobody notices her BFF is missing until almost too late…

Of course the Slayer does her thing and rescues her gal-pal in time, but after a spectacular vamp-eviscerating battle, Buffy’s concern for Willow causes her to miss one demon who manages to flee with severe – but not death-threatening – injuries. That would prove a costly oversight in months to come as Selke slowly regained her power and fed her burning hatred…

From issue #3 ‘Cold Turkey’ continued the holiday horrors with Buffy lumbered by her mother with producing the daunting Thanksgiving blow-out. Stuck with necessarily late-night shopping in-between school and Slayer-ing, she and Giles are obsessing over the missing fourth Halloween human-hoarder.

Selke is hiding out and recuperating via the most degrading and disgusting means, but when she spots her hated enemy picking up turkey and trimmings at the soul-destroying All-Nite-O-Mart, the damaged devil decides to surprise the Slayer and speed her recovery with a hot meal.

Not her best idea ever, but even after a blistering cemetery confrontation the irrepressible Queen of the Damned again escapes with most of her scurvy skin intact…

The devastating and dramatic danses macabre conclude here with the aforementioned added bonus ‘MacGuffins’ from Dark Horse Presents Annual 1998: a gleeful mirthquake wherein Buffy receives a brace of mischievous, uncontrollable gremlins in the post.

This time however the trollish terrors are not a malign menace but a Watcher-sponsored test – one Giles would learn to regret once the hilariously grudge-bearing Slayer finally got her hands on the slippery little supernatural sods…

With photos and original covers by Arthur Adams, Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend & Joe Bennett, this fast and furious, pictorially powerful compilation is sharply scripted and proceeds at a breakneck rollercoaster pace, to perfectly capture the brittle, intoxicating spirit of the TV series.

The Remaining Sunlight is an easily accessible romp even if you’re not familiar with the vast backstory: a creepy chronicle and tumultuous thriller as easily enjoyed by the most callow neophyte as by any dedicated devotee.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ™ & © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.