Category: Horror Stories

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Tales of the Mysterious Traveller


By Joe Gill, Steve Ditko, Bill Molno, Gene Colan, Charles Nicholas, Paul Reinman & various (Racecourse Press/GT Ltd.)
No ISBN

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 tell stories the best way he can, whilst the noblest of aspirations, has and will always be a major 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 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, always seeking to be as free as possible from the interference of intrusive editors.

The Mysterious Traveller was one of Charlton Comics’ earliest stars. The title came from a radio show (which ran from 1943-1952) which the doggedly second-string company licensed, with a lead/host/narrator acting more as voyeur than active participant.

Standing aloof, speaking “to camera” and asking readers for opinion and judgement, he shared a selection of funny, sad, scary and wondrous human interest yarns all tinged with a hint of the weird and supernatural. The long-running show spawned a single comicbook issue published by Trans-World Publications illustrated by the great Bob Powell, cover-dated November 1948.

When revived years later and as rendered by Ditko, whose storytelling mastery, page design and full, lavish brushwork were just beginning to come into their mature full range, the Tales of the Mysterious Traveler (as the US version was styled) short stories were esoteric and utterly mesmerising. This comicbook iteration ran for 13 issues from 1956-1959…

The particular print artefact under review today is in fact a British compilation of Charlton reprints, culled not only from the nominated title but from range of genre titles for a presumably less-discerning British audience. It’s one of a line of card-cover albums and cheap pamphlets reprinting US material that proliferated in the late 1950’s before actual comicbooks began to be imported. Other volumes range from Blackhawk to Rip Kirby to Twilight Zone.

The short complete tale was once the sole staple of the comic book profession, when the plan was to deliver as much variety as possible to the reader. Sadly that particular discipline is all but lost to modern comic creators.

This undated (I’m guessing it’s from 1960) monochrome chronicle – which I’m assuming was scripted almost entirely by the prodigiously prolific Joe Gill – opens with ‘Little Boy Blue’ (TotMT#10, November 1958) detailing the unsuspected, unacknowledged sacrifice of a jazz virtuoso who saves the world after which, from the same issue ‘The Statues that Came to Life’ reveals how ancient Greek king Pellas tries to duplicate Pygmalion’s legendary feat and hires an artist to carve him a perfect wife.

However when sculptor Phidias succeeds and the marble beauty comes to life, it is not Pellas she wants…

‘The Puncher from Panhandle’ is western prose yarn by Frank Richards – which feels like it might have been written by a Brit – after which two episodes of ‘Sundown Patrol’ (frustratingly familiar – perhaps early Don Perlin – but I can’t find where it originally ran) follows a grim attrition as nine US Cavalrymen defy renegade warrior Crazy Dog‘s attempts to destroy them…

It’s followed by another Frank Richards western vignette: a tale of banditry and ‘The Man in the Flour Bag’ after which Ditko again scores with the classic sci fi shocker ‘Adrift in Space’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #8, June1958). Here Captain Crewes, marooned in the void by a mutinous crew, ruminates on what brought him to this sorry fate.

Next is ‘The Half Men’ (illustrated by Bill Molno &Sal Trapani from the same issue) which sees three flawed but dauntless men voyage to a fantastic under-earth civilisation. Astute readers might recognise the tale from modern alternative comics since Kevin Huizenga tellingly redrew the entire epic for Kramer’s Ergot volume 8…

Also from MoUW #8 is a moving yarn by Gene Colan and one that I can’t identify. Colan’s moodily rendered ‘The Good Provider’ sees a married couple tested to the extreme by a wish-fulfilling bag whilst ‘Full Development’ follows the sorry path of a young man who develops mind-reading powers after the CIA recruit him…

Ditko resurfaces for ‘The Mountain That Was’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #11 January 1959) with an eerie saga of climbers and snowbound monsters after which from the same source ‘Voyage to Nowhere’ (Molno & Vince Alascia) sees a wealthy man fall into a coma and undergo a startling moral transformation.

Unusual Tales #6 (February 1957) provided ‘Caveman’ (by Charles Nicholas & Jon D’Agostino?) which follows a sour-tempered wage-slave through a cathartic reversion to soul-cleansing primitivism whilst, following prose terror tale ‘Frightful Fears’ from MoUW #11, ‘Algaroba the Aerial Artist’ (Molno & Alascia, Unusual Tales #2, January 1956) poses a bizarre enigma of reincarnation and high wire artistry…

‘The Strange Return’ by Paul Reinman (MoUW #11 again) treads similar ground with the tale of a treasure hunter in Persia after which ‘The Memorable Mile’ (probably by Molno again but I can’t trace the source) details how supernatural forces come to the fore in a propaganda-drenched sporting contest…

Molno & Trapani then render ‘Not All Gold Glitters’ (Unusual Tales #6, February 1957) wherein a destitute couple are pushed to the limits of sanity when they mysteriously inherit a fortune whilst ‘Elixir’ (Molno &Trapani from MoUW #8 again) attacks medical arrogance as a disbelieving doctor throws away a miracle cure he receives in the mail…

Everything wraps up with anonymously illustrated (Maurice Whitman perhaps?) but moving ‘Willie!’ from UT #6 as a modernising boss comes a-cropper after retiring an aging craftsman and his favourite machine…

This amazingly 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 a time when a story could end sadly as well as happily or portentously and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

Sadly it’s rather hard to find – but not impossible! – and, if like me, you lament that only superstar creators get their back catalogue reprinted these days but still yearn to see the efforts of the journeymen who filled the other pages of old comicbooks, collections like this are your only resort.

Little gems like this should be permanently in print or at least available online and used as a primer for any artist who wants a career in comics, animation or any storytelling discipline.
No copyright notice included so let’s assume © 2014 the current rights owner. All rights reserved.

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Cochlea & Eustachia


By Hans Rickheit (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-801-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Unseasonably Strange but Utterly Irresistible… 9/10

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 and The Squirrel Machine. 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, creating beguiling webcomics and instigating the occasional anthology or minicomic of his own such as Chrome Fetus.

That last was the original venue for the strangely surreal binary sorority known as Cochlea & Eustachia. They first manifested in issue #5 in 2001, with obscure and occulted follow-ups in The Stranger, Proper Gander, Hoax, Typhon, Blurred Visions and Pood. Most recently they have destructively scurried and ambled through Rickheit’s webcomic pages (http://www.chromefetus.com/) and now are ready to inflict their distracting blend of ingénue iconoclasm and chaos chic through the printed page of a splendidly olde worlde graphic compilation.

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 frequently challenging logic-bending of miasmic mystery and cosmic confusion.

In Short: pay attention, scrutinise carefully and make up your own mind…

In a shabby, battered manse peculiar contraptions and bizarre trophies of things that should never have existed – let alone be stuffed and mounted – abound.

The master of the house is another strange creature and as he awakes from a unique bier and begins to wander the rooms, unseen and undetected wanton mischief makers Cochlea and Eustachia rouse also and resume their apparently aimless peregrinations through the walls, nooks and crannies of the edifice that rests atop a sea of animal skulls…

The nubile, girl-like creatures scutter about in dream-like journeys and progressions, avoiding and yet stalking the wheelchair bound savant as he continues his labours, cultivating creatures of incomprehensible oddity…

Soon chances occur for more manufactured calamity and a wildly sedate chase ensues, resulting in capture, shocking indignity and a clash with monsters and giant robots, but as the episode escalates we are left to wonder are the elfin wanderers a binary or in fact trinary partnership?

Or is the truth – if such a thing can ever be pinned down and vivisected – something even more baroque and uncanny?

All that basically means is that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling this sinisterly absurdist confection from one of the most impressively singleminded craftsmen working in comics today, and if you are at all tempted or intrigued you must buy this splendidly slewed and offbeat chronicle.

Scary, beautiful, disturbing and often utterly inappropriate, the full-colour exploits of the masked misfit misses is accompanied by an enticing extra tale in muted monochrome as the mysterious masqueraders return to declare ‘How It Works’, after finding a possibly handsome stranger stashed in a box in a starkly surreal swamp…

Visually reminiscent of the best of Rick Geary, Jason Lutes and Charles Burns whilst being nothing like them at all, Rickheit presents a singularly surreal and mannered design; a highly charged, subtly disturbing delusion that will chill, bewilder and possibly even outrage many readers.

It is also compelling, seductive, sublimely quirky, blackly hilarious 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 decade – or any other…
Cochlea & Eustachia © 2014 Hans Rickheit. This edition © 2014 Fantagraphics Books Inc.

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Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole


By Leonard Brandt Cole with an introduction by Bill Schelly (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-762-8

The early days of the American comicbook industry were a whirlwind of spectacular exuberance and the front covers of the gaudy pamphlets that endlessly proliferated were all crafted to scream “Buy Me! Buy Me!” from within a sea of similar sights.

As such, that first visual contact was crucial to success and one of the greatest artists ever to mesmerise kids out of their hard-earned dimes was Leonard Brandt Cole (28th August 1918 – December 5th 1995) who had a master designer’s knack for combining captivating ideas and imagery with eye-popping style and technique.

Although he also illustrated quite a few interior strips (for Holyoke, Ajax, Farrel and Gilberton), Cole’s true gift and passion was devising attention-grabbing cover images rendered in what he called “poster colors”.

Whether on Horror, Superhero, Science Fiction, Sports, Humour, Crime, War, Western, Rugged Adventure, Jungle, Romance or Funny Animal titles, his stellar, absorbing art was instantly recognisable and in great part is what defines the Golden Age of Comics for us today…

His influence doesn’t end there, however. A shrewd businessman and editor, Cole started his own studio-shop to manufacture stories for assorted companies and parlayed it into publishing company (initially by buying existing properties from client Novelty Press in 1949) and then diversifying through his Star Comics line into genre novels, prose-pulps, puzzle-books and general magazine periodicals.

Frequently he would combine his electric primary colours over a black background adding instant extra punch to his renditions of masked champions, soaring spaceships, macabre monsters and a legion of damsels in love or distress…

Before joining the nascent comics industry in the early 1940s, Cole’s background was in science and printing. He studied veterinary science (he held a doctorate in Anatomy and Physiology from the University of Berlin) but was working as a lithographic Art Director when he made the seemingly sideways transition into illustration and comics.

Incredibly this colossal (272 pages, at 337x235mm), durably Flexibound compendium is his first major retrospective, bringing together a multitude of his most impressive works in one immense, colourful and informative volume

The astounding career of a comicbook Renaissance man is covered in fascinating detail in ‘Comics by Design – the Weird Worlds of L.B. Cole’ by pre-eminent historian of the medium Bill Schelly, whose appreciation ‘Fever Dreams in Four-Color Form’ is followed by his erudite biography and timeline of the artist, divided into four discrete periods.

Each section is augmented by photos, covers, original artwork and even comics extracts – ranging from panels and splash pages to complete stories (such as Paul Revere Jr.) – covered in lavish detail in ‘Into Comics’ and ‘Cole as Publisher’ whilst ‘Out of Comics’ focuses on his later move into commercial art, education and illustration.

In the 1980s Cole was “rediscovered” by comics fandom and achieved minor celebrity status through appearances at conventions. ‘Art Among the Junk’ covers this period up until his death when he began recreating his iconic covers as privately commissioned paintings for modern collectors.

The true wonder of this glorious phantasmagorical collection follows in ‘The Comics Covers of L.B. Cole’ which showcases long runs of the artist’s stunning covers – nearly 350 eye-popping poster images – from such evocative titles as 4Most, All-Famous Police Cases, Blue Bolt, Captain Aero, Cat-Man Comics, Classics Illustrated, Contact Comics, Confessions of Love, Criminals on the Run, Dick Tracy, Flight Comics, Frisky Animals, Ghostly Weird Stories, Killers, Jeep Comics, Mask, Popular Teen-Agers, Power Comics, Ship Ahoy, Shocking Mystery Cases, Spook, Sport Thrills, Startling Terror Tales, Suspense Comics, Target Comics, Terrors of the Jungle, Top Love, Toy Town, Western Crime Cases, White Rider and Super Horse and many more…

The pictorial feast doesn’t end there though as ‘Further Works’ gathers a host of his non-comics covers including books such as The Greatest Prison Breaks of All Time, Murders I’ve Seen, Raging Passions and Love Hungry, as well as magazine covers for joke periodicals like Wit and Wisdom, Sporting Dogs and World Rod and Gun. Gentleman’s publications and “sweat mags” such as Man’s True Action, Man’s Daring Adventures and Epic (Stories of True Action) also feature: all augmented with articles, working sketches and original drawings and paintings. There’s even a selection of his superb animal studies and anatomical and medical textbook illustrations, plus private commissions, recreations and unpublished or unfinished works…

Black Light is a vast and stunning treasury of fantastic imagery from a bygone age by a master of visual communication that no fan of popular art could fail to appreciate, but for comics lovers it’s something else too: a seductive gateway to astounding worlds of imagination and breathless nostalgia impossible to resist.
Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole © 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All comics, artwork, photos, illustrations and intellectual properties © 2015 the respective copyright holder. All rights reserved.

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Robbie Burns: Witch Hunter


By Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby, Tiernen Trevallion, Jim Campbell & Jerry Brannigan (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-99215-085-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a graphic joy beyond compare… 10/10

Robert Burns was born in 1759 in Alloway. His father was a farmer who went to great lengths to ensure that his children were properly educated. Robert was schooled in the classics, French and Latin and began his creative writing when he was fifteen.

He led a successful, tempestuous life – particularly favouring boozy carousing and roistering escapades with the ladies – and died in 1796 aged 37.

As well as his dialectical and vernacular poetry, Burns selflessly preserved a wealth of traditional Scottish songs and folklore – particularly the bizarre arcane bestiary of supernatural entities God-fearing folk of the 18th century believed in – and is more popular today than he has ever been.

He is the only poet in history to have his own globally celebrated holiday, with his birth anniversary on January 25th an affair universally honoured by food, drink, recitations and well-loved scary stories…

This stunning re-imagining of the venerable wordsmith by scripters Gordon Rennie (Necronauts, Cabalistics Inc., Judge Dredd) and Emma Beeby (Doctor Who, Judge Dredd), breathtakingly illustrated by relative newcomer Tiernen Trevallion (2000AD, Judge Dredd) and lettered by Jim Campbell, owes as much to the modern fashion for stylish tongue-in-cheek horror comedies like Shaun of the Dead, Lesbian Vampire Killers and I Sell the Dead as the beguiling and frequently fantastical works of the poet, but the skilful interweaving of Burns’ immortal lines with a diabolically clever but simple idea make this tale an unforgettable treat whether pages or screens float your particular boat…

Think of it this way: in all those sterling supernatural sonnets and sagas, Burns wasn’t reinterpreting his elders’ supernatural folk tales or exercising a unique imagination, he was simply quoting from his diary…

The wee drama unfolds one night in Ayrshire in 1779 when rascally young gadabout Robbie finds himself on the wrong end of an angry man’s fist after playing fast and loose with the irate hulk’s intended bride. However, even though all the lassies fall for the blithe blather of the self-proclaimed poet, the battered man himself knows he has not yet found his true muse…

Half-drunk and well-thumped, the farmer’s son heads his horse for home but is drawn to uncanny lights emanating from haunted, drear abandoned old Alloway Kirk. Dangerously enthralled he then espies a scene out of Hell itself as witches and demons cavort in a naked ecstasy of dark worship to the satanic master “Old Clootie”…

The lad’s enrapt attention is only broken by a heavy pistol shoved in his ear by a stealthy pair also watching the shocking ritual. Old Mackay is a daunting figure kitted out like a wrinkled human arsenal but Robbie’s attention cannot stray from the dangerous codger’s comely companion Meg, the most astounding woman he has ever seen.

Unfortunately the confrontation between the mortal voyeurs has resulted in Burns’ “innocent” blood being spilled and the satanic celebrants have caught wind of it…

Soon all the denizens of Hell are howling after the ‘mazed mortals but things are not as they seem. The outlandish pair are actually Witch Hunters, ferociously skilled in sending all Satan’s minions back to the Inferno and always armed to the teeth with a fantastic array of ingeniously inventive ordnance…

Having fought free of the black Sabbat, the mortals take flight with the screaming witches in pursuit and when one grabs Robbie as he rides pillion on Meg’s horse, the dazed, half-soused lad blasts the beast with one of his companions’ blessed flintlock pistols.

Tragically in the selfsame altercation the pursuing she-devil had opportunity to mark him with her talons and the would-be poet promptly sobers up when he is informed that he has only three days left to live…

With mounting terror he learns that most mortals so infected become willing thralls of the hellions, but when a seductive minion of The Pit comes for him the next night, the scribbler somehow fends it off long enough for the suspiciously near-at-hand Meg to spectacularly despatch it back to the brimstone realms…

Concluding that’s there might be something of worth to the Burns boy, Mackay and Meg resolve to teach him how to be a true Witch Hunter so that he can defend himself when the horrors come in full strength to collect the Devil’s due. Of course that’s only three days hence…

Renegade are a publisher who value fact as well as fiction and this superb full-colour hardback comes with a fine selection of factual features beginning with a lavish history and appreciation of Scotland’s greatest poet in Robbie Burns: a Biography’ by author and historian Jerry Brannigan as well as ‘Selected Poems’ which provides a tantalising entrée into the uniquely impassioned and eerie world of the grand imagineer with a sampling of some of his most famous works embellished and beguilingly illustrated with a wealth of Trevallion’s pencils sketches of Bogles and Brownies, Spunkies and Sirens and even senior Witch Hunter Mackay.

The rhythmic reveille includes Scots Wha Hae, the totally crucial, groundbreaking spooky saga Tam o’ Shanter (A Tale), the evocative A Red, Red Rose, A Man’s A Man For A’ That, the delirious Address To The Deil and most moving lament Ae Fond Kiss, And Then We Sever…

Smart, action packed, skilfully suspenseful, uproariously funny, divinely irreverent and genuinely scary or sad by turn, Robbie Burns Witch Hunter is a gloriously compelling and truly mesmerising romp: a doom-laden, wisecracking rollicking love story no sensitive soul or jaded comics fan could possibly resist. It’s even educational too…
Robbie Burns: Witch Hunter © 2014 Renegade Arts Entertainment, Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby and Tiernen Trevallion.

To learn more and obtain copies check out Turnaround or Amazon.

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In a Glass Grotesquely – Selected Picture Stories


By Richard Sala (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-797-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Pure and Primal Comics Wonderment… 9/10

Richard Sala is a lauded and much-deserving darling of the Literary Comics movement (if such a thing exists), blending beloved pop culture artefacts and conventions – particularly cheesy comics and old horror films – with a hypnotically effective ability to tell a graphic tale.

He grew up in Chicago and Arizona before earning a Masters in Fine Arts, and after beginning a career as an illustrator rediscovered his love of comicbooks. The potentially metafictional self-published Night Drive in 1984 led to appearances in legendary 1980s anthologies Raw and Blab! and animated adaptations of the series on Liquid Television.

His work is welcomingly atmospheric, dryly ironic, wittily quirky and mordantly funny; indulgently celebrating childhood terrors, gangsters, bizarre events, monsters and manic mysteries, with girl sleuth Judy Drood and the glorious trenchant storybook investigator Peculia the most well known characters in his gratifyingly large back catalogue.

Sala’s art is a joltingly jolly – if macabre – joy to behold and has also shone on many out-industry projects such as his work with Lemony Snickett, The Residents and even – posthumously – Jack Kerouac; illustrating the author’s outrageous Doctor Sax and The Great World Snake.

In a Glass Grotesquely is his latest irresistible tract of baroque pictorial enchantment, deftly combining his recent 2014 webcomic with a triptych of visceral and saturnine delusions from the end of the last century, all exploring the bleakest corners of the modern world’s communal fantasy landscape and applying his truly skewed raconteur’s gifts to giving us a thrill, a chill and a chortle…

The majority of this spookily sublime confrontation with the cartoon dark side is taken up with the gripping saga of ultimate enemy of America ‘Super-Enigmatix’, a diabolically inspired super-villain determined to avenge himself upon America for slights both imagined and tragically real…

Delivered in punchy alternating doses of surreal full-colour splashes and moody monochrome subplots, the story details how the brilliant weird-scientist, served by an army of beautiful female zealots and hidden race of mole people, tries to destroy modern society, only opposed by disenchanted ex-cop Natalie Charms and a dedicated band of “conspiracy nuts”…

The struggle against a self-created monster hiding behind a smoke screen of urban legend is fast-paced, Byzantine, and insidiously politically charged: a mesmerising chase-caper and delight of post-modern paranoia meeting classic pulp-fiction melodrama…

Like a bleakly mordant reinvention of the Catholic Church’s Stations of the Cross, ‘It Will All Be Over Before You Know It…’ is a sequence from single panel black and white epigrams building to a tableau of modern terrors for women seeking work, after which 1998’s ‘Stranger Street’ silently details the building tension as a psycho-killer haunts the streets of an already scary town…

The cracked chronicle then concludes with a Kafkaesque shaggy bird story delivered in barrage of grey wash, as an ineffectual nobody receives – and loses – a once-in-a-lifetime honour in ‘The Prestigious Banquet To Be Held In My Honour’…

In a Glass Grotesquely amusingly exposes the seamy, scary underbelly of existence with these enigmatic, clever, compelling and staggeringly engaging yarns blending nostalgic escapism with the childish frisson of children scaring themselves silly under the bedcovers at night and will therefore make an ideal gift for the big kid in your life – whether he/she’s just you, imaginary or even relatively real…

In a Glass Grotesquely © 2014 Richard Sala. This edition © 2014 Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

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B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs volume 1


By Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Brian McDonald, Miles Gunther, Brian Augustyn, Geoff Johns, Joe Harris, Guy Davis, Ryan Sook, Matt Smith, Derek Thompson, Michael Avon Oeming, Scott Kolins, Adam Pollina, Cameron Stewart & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-5958-2675-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epic Eldritch Entertainment… 9/10

Hellboy is a creature of vast depth and innate mystery; a demonic baby summoned to Earth by Nazi occultists at the end of Word War II but subsequently raised, educated and trained by parapsychologist Professor Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm to destroy unnatural threats and supernatural monsters as the lead agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

After decades of unfailing, faithful service he became mortally tired and resigned. Itinerantly roaming the world, he still managed to encounter weird happenstances but could never escape trouble or his sense of duty. This book is not about him.

The massive collection under review here instead features his trusty comrades and other assorted spin-off characters from Mike Mignola’s legendary franchise: valiant champions who also deal with those occult occasions which typically fall under the remit of the Enhanced Talents task force established in Fairfield, Connecticut as the baby imp grew to monster-mangling manhood.

If you’re having trouble with the concept think of a government-sanctioned and internationally co-sponsored Ghostbusters dealing with Buffy-style threats to humanity.

As discussed in Scott Allie’s Introduction, the B.P.R.D. soon established itself as a viable premise in its own right and, through a succession of interlinked miniseries, went on to battle an ancient and arcane amphibian menace to the world in an immense epic which spanned eight years of publication.

Periodically released as a series of trade paperbacks during that time, the entire supernatural saga dubbed Plague of Frogs has been remastered and will be now be collected as a quartet of monumental volumes, of which this is the fearsome first. Gathering material from Hellboy: Box full of Evil, one-shots Abe Sapien: Drums of the Dead, B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth, B.P.R.D.: The Soul of Venice, B.P.R.D.: Dark Waters, B.P.R.D.: Night Train, B.P.R.D.: There’s Something Under My Bed, 5-issue miniseries B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs and choice snippets from the publisher’s trade flyer Dark Horse Extra, this macabre triumvirate of terror opens with ‘Hollow Earth’ written by Mignola, Christopher Golden & Tom Sniegoski and illustrated by Ryan Sook with additional inking from Curtis Arnold, letters from Clem Robins and magical colours from the himself-legendary Dave Stewart.

After the events of Hellboy: Conqueror Worm, the horned hero quit the B.P.R.D. which had been his only home since he was rescued from those Fascist sorcerers on December 23rd 1944, and our tale begins with the remaining investigators questioning their own validity in and responsibilities to an organisation which clearly does not fully trust or appreciate them.

Such ponderings are sidelined however when on-sabbatical pyrokinetic Liz Sherman sends a spectacular distress call to amphibious Abe Sapien. Since she has been missing for two years nobody downplays it and a scratch team is promptly dispatched to her last known location, a temple in the Ural Mountains, on the Arctic Circle.

The squad comprises conflicted, lonely Abe, disgruntled artificial warrior Roger the Homunculus (still peeved by the discovery that his bosses planted a bomb inside him to ensure he remained controllable) and new recruit Johann Krauss, a recently disembodied psychic, led by reluctantly promoted psychologist/ field commander Kate Corrigan …

When they arrive they find all the priests of Agartha slaughtered and Liz’s body cold and empty… but not dead. Also scattered about are the bodies of dead monsters and a great big hole leading down through the mountain into untrammelled subterranean depths…

Realising that Liz’s animating energy has been stolen, Abe and the team plunge into the darkness, determined to rescue their comrade and solve the mystery…

And so begins a ponderously oppressive, doom-laden classic adventure of sub-Terrene lost civilisations, ancient races, infernal entities and imminent threat of world conquest, all dealt with in blockbusting fashion by moodily charismatic heroes in the supremely entertaining action-packed, tension-filled nick-of-time.

Crafted by the same creative team and lettered by Dan Jackson, the under-Earth escapade is followed by ‘Hollow Earth, Dark Horse Extra’ which offers the tragic origin of bodiless spiritualist Johann Kraus, after which ‘The Killer in My Skull’ (written by Mignola, drawn by Matt Smith, inked by Sook and coloured by Stewart, introduces 1930’s masked ghost-breaker Lobster Johnson in a splendid weird-science shocker, whilst ‘Abe Sapien versus Science’ chills through an intimate glimpse at the fabulous manphibian’s early days as a guinea pig of the B.P.R.D.’s research division, with Mignola replacing Smith as inker. Pat Brosseau is the under-appreciated letterer in both cases, which both originally appeared as back-up strips from the miniseries Hellboy: Box Full of Evil.

Next up is a full-length Abe Sapien solo thriller, courtesy of writer Brian McDonald, illustrator Derek Thompson, colourist James Sinclair and Brosseau. ‘Drums of the Dead’ is a splendidly spooky sea-faring thriller involving voodoo, sharks and the unhappy unburied as Abe and apprentice Bureau psychic Garrett investigate uncanny and lethal transatlantic phenomena in the seas where once slave traders sailed…

The second book in this mammoth compilation is ‘The Soul of Venice and Other Stories’ commencing with that eponymous yarn by Miles Gunther & Michael Avon Oeming with a little help from Mignola, colours by Stewart and letters by Ken Bruzenak.

It all kicks off as amphibian Abe, bodiless Johann, lonely Roger and newly reinstated firestarter Liz are dispatched to Venice (that other one in Italy) to solve a literally nauseating crisis.

To fix the problem they have to invade a haunted palazzo, battle a debauched ghost-vampire and liberate an ancient Roman Goddess, incurring along the way the extremely polite disinterest of archdevil Lord Shax of Hell. However, in the triumphant aftermath Roger and the liberated deity Cloacina strike up an unlikely relationship…

Brian Augustyn, Guy Davis, Stewart and Michelle Madsen then pit Sapien and Roger against religious zealotry and misunderstood arcane forces in ‘Dark Waters’.

When the corpses of three women branded as witches centuries earlier are pulled, inert, unchanged and smelling of roses, from a 300-year interment at the bottom of a duck pond in Shiloh (near Salem), Massachusetts the duo reluctantly investigate, but things go nastily awry when fire-and-brimstone preacher Pastor Blackwood steals the bodies.

Happily the agents and a more piously forgiving man of god are able to thwart the witch-hunting loon before he unleashes forces nothing could stop…

‘Night Train’ (Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Stewart & Brosseau) give the old “ghost locomotive” plot an effective tweak when Liz and Roger meet the unquiet spirit of Lobster Johnson. The bombastic mystery man has returned to help stop the aged Nazi maniac who killed him and slaughtered a convoy of Manhattan Project scientists in 1939…

The entire team are on hand to solve the mystery of disappearing babies in ‘There’s Something Under My Bed’ by Joe Harris, Adam Pollina, Guillermo Zubiaga, Lee Loughridge & Brosseau, leaving the “Enhanced Talents” (at least) wondering if they should revise their definition of the term “monster”, after which ‘Another Day at the Office’ (Mignola, Cameron Stewart, Madsen & Michael Heisler) raucously recounts the fate of a resurrected Balkan necromancer who thought his zombie legions a match for Abe, Johann and a squad of well-armed, well-trained B.P.R.D. regulars…

The third and final Book reprints the monstrously chilling opening sally in the epic ‘Plague of Frogs’ (by Mignola, Davis, Stewart & Robins) storyline as the supernatural riot squad faces off against some of their oldest enemies, allowing the author to tie up a number of loose ends and plot threads which encompass the entire publishing history of Hellboy…

The challengers of the extremely unknown are called in when a spore monster escapes from a B.P.R.D. storage facility and Abe, Liz, Johann, Roger and Kate Corrigan have their work cut out trying to stop the granddaddy of all elder gods from turning Earth into a charnel pit and breeding ground for giant frog demons.

Amongst all that mood, mystery, carnage and catastrophe Mignola and the unbelievably underrated and unique Guy Davis even manage to give us an origin of sorts for Abe Sapien in such a way as to tell everything and still leave us all none the wiser…

To Be Continued…

Rounding out this astoundingly absorbing tome is a portentous Afterword by Mignola, who also contribute extensively to the trio of Sketchbook Sections for Hollow Earth (mostly Sook), Soul of Venice by Avon Oeming, Davis, Kolins, Pollina and Cameron Stewart and finally Plague of Frogs by Davis. Also included are a gallery of covers, character recaps and other eerie art treats.

With the tides of TV fashion once again shifting towards the fantastic, this bunch must be the first choice option for every production company out there. Until then why not get ahead of the rush by reading these truly magical tales?
© 2003, 2004, 2005, 2014 Mike Mignola. All rights reserved. B.P.R.D., all key and prominently featured characters ™ Mike Mignola.

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Channel Evil


By Alan Grant, Shane Oakley, D’Israeli, Suzanne O’Brien & various (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-986820021-4-5

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: spooky chills for dark winter nights… 8/10

As the nights draw in, thoughts just naturally turn to hunkering down by a fire, eating to excess, drinking to oblivion and scaring the bejeezus out of each other with uncanny stories.

In that hallowed tradition comes a stunning (mostly) monochrome treat from veteran comicbook craftsmen Alan Grant (Robo-Hunter, Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Batman, The Bogie Man, plus one or two other things you might have heard of) and Shane Oakley (Fatal Charm, Mister X, Albion) which began life as an apparently cursed miniseries from Renegade and Berserker Comics in 2009.

That story is well covered in the brace of Introductions by author Grant and his film-making partner in creative cooperative Renegade Arts Entertainment, so I won’t waste your time here. However, with Channel Evil finally completed, the spectacular results have been released as a gripping grimoire of wicked wonderment with even more appreciations and reminiscences from horrorist Doug “Pinhead” Bradley in his Foreword before a decidedly different scary story starts in, of all places, Blackpool…

‘Don’t Touch that Dial’ opens with ambitious local TV presenter Jez Manson doing what he loves most: ripping apart and humiliating a minor celeb on his talk show. Having crushed another eager hopeful, the Man of the Hour celebrates by taking his glamour model girlfriend Lian for a walk along the Central Pier and is cajoled into seeing a show starring medium Conni Verona.

The mouthy sceptic is unimpressed with the psychic’s message of universal peace and love as she “channels” her spirit guide Great Horam – but on seeing the packed and enrapt audience Manson knows money when he smells it…

Arranging for Connie to appear on his show is easy and avaricious agent “Fast Mick” also senses more priceless publicity and ratings in store. Unfortunately when Conni is interviewed on Channel X-33 things don’t go as expected as she turns his ridiculing ambush back upon him, daring him to try and contact the spirit dimensions himself.

Forced to comply, Jez has a go and, after four millennia, the pagan god Ba’al finds himself a new and extremely inviting vessel…

Jez’s transformation is terrifying, compulsive and hypnotic… until Conni snaps him out of his possessed state with a smart slap across the face. Manson is dazed and visibly shaken but all Mick can see is the astounding viewer reactions and offers from the major networks for more of the same…

Brushing off Conni’s warning about messing with the unknown, Jez and Mick go on a club-hopping bender but the exhausted interviewer begs off early, heading home to crash out.

Later that night three rowdily drunken stag night partiers are burned to death…

‘Interference Pattern’ sees Lian arrive home after a “Page 3” gig to find Jez in an uncharacteristically gloomy state, morbidly dwelling for reasons even he can’t explain on the triple homicide.

Across town, meanwhile, world-weary Sergeant Niven and his junior partner Detective Tate start their investigations at the morgue. All they’ve got to go on is three crispy charred corpses, a jerry can with an almost useless partial fingerprint and a brain-fried wino who might have witnessed the attack…

Jez is enduring horrific nightmares of slaughter and conquest, punctuated by demands from a supernal maniac that he surrender his body…

Mick does more than amorously solicitous Lian to quash those night terrors. The wily manager has arranged a live broadcast from Louis Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors for Jez to display his captivating new talent before an eager audience and sensation-hungry world. Once again Ba’al does not disappoint…

After a stunningly baroque and grotesque display which brings the gods of television clamouring to his door with their chequebooks out, Jez heads for home utterly exhausted. Exultant Mick finds him there crashed out next day, with no memory of the intervening hours. Lian is there too. Well, at least most of her is…

With Manson utterly oblivious to the situation, Mick does what every good manager does and fixes things. Utterly unaware of what he’s done, the presenter is far more worried by a spate of bloody atrocities across the country. He’s convinced they’re all Ba’al’s work.

The police, thanks to that partial print, have listed Jez as a person of interest and paid a visit, but once again the agent has all the bases covered…

Despite everything he seen Mick is still sceptical, but agrees to fetch Conni Verona to “fix” either Jez’s delusion or – just possibly – the demonic intrusion. When he returns, however, his client is missing, giving the agent time to arrange one more televisual spectacular for the masses…

With the police closing in and Conni and Great Horam poised to banish the invading spirit the stage is set for a cataclysmic climax, but as you’d expect the ferocious ancient god has his own ideas…

Dark, witty, razor-paced and genuinely suspenseful, Grant’s Channel Evil delivers a potent punch to delight modern fans of mood and mystery, couched in slick and subtle terms and illustrated with devilishly stylish aplomb by Oakley and Suzanne O’Brien, but this wicked chronicle does not end there.

Also included is a gallery of covers and variants by Wayne Nichols, Mark Buckingham, Frank Quitely & D’Israeli, a fascinating glimpse into Oakley’s process via an extensive ‘Sketch Book’ feature, and a brilliant, informative and blackly hilarious bonus story as the red-handed storm god himself gives a candid in-depth TV interview which reveals his astonishing history and literally brings the house down in ‘An Evening With Ba’al’…

Smart, sharp and unforgettable, this is a spooky yarn no grown-up fear aficionado will dare to miss.
Channel Evil © 2012 Renegade Arts Entertainment and Alan Grant.

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Nightmare Carnival


By various, edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-6165-5427-9

Here’s a somewhat rushed review because the reading copy arrived late but I’m still determined to get it out in time for Halloween.

Apologies to all involved for my uncharacteristic brevity…

Dark Horse are best known for their comics and graphic novel efforts but they occasionally slip into old-school legitimate book publishing as with the astounding 2009 release Lovecraft Unbound.

The creative force behind that cosmically unsettling chronicle was Ellen Datlow, the prestigious, multi award-winning editor whose past endeavours include being fiction-editor at Omni, compiling The Best Horror of the Year series, books such as Lovecraft’s Monsters, Darkness: Two Decades of Horror and many more. She spends her quiet moments sourcing short fiction for Tor.Com.

Here she has assembled a chilling coterie of prose parables set in the fertile literary field of unearthly travelling shows as previously exploited by such luminaries as Ray Bradbury in Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dean Koontz in Twilight Eyes or Katherine Dunn in Geek Love.

This last luminary contributes an atmospheric Introduction to this selection of shockers set in and around circus life, atmospherically restating why the Wandering Show biz is such a bastion of terror tales, whilst Datlow’s Preface offers a more personal view of the Three Ring Experience.

The cavalcade commences with ‘Scapegoats’ by N. Lee Wood, which makes us look at elephants in a whole new way, after which Priya Sharma’s ‘The Firebrand’ balances passion, murder and revenge on the tip of a burning tongue and ‘Work, Hook, Shoot, Rip’ from Nick Mamatas describes an aging wrestler’s ultimate battle against a weird new freak…

A.C. Wise recounts an ex-cop’s problems with a missing family case in ‘And the Carnival Leaves Town’, before Terry Dowling describes in ‘Corpse Rose’ how, when Jeremy Scott Renton was , a bizarre circus ran away to join him and (sadly recently deceased) Joel Lane offers a disturbing insight to the nasty, shabby-chic British experience via a paean to lost love in ‘Last of the Fair’…

A brush with eccentric academics and hidebound college customs draws an unwary new tutor into ‘A Small Part in the Pantomime’ (Glen Hirshberg) and the near-loss of everything she was, whilst ‘Hibbler’s Minions’ (Jeffrey Ford) harks back to the Dustbowl depression of 1933 and a twitchy time with a circus of astoundingly well-trained fleas, after which Dennis Danvers’ ‘Swan Song and Then Some’ explores the amazing resilience and bitter wishes of a songstress who just won’t stay dead.

‘The Lion Cage’ by Genevieve Valentine focuses on the welcome fate of a animal trainer more bestial than his benighted living props, whereas the fun-loving kids in Stephen Graham Jones’ ‘The Darkest Part’ only want to fulfil their hearts desires – to kill as many clowns as humanly possible – whilst Robert Shearman (yeah, the Dalek writer from Doctor Who) takes a lonely insignificant balloon-animal maker on an incredible trip to ‘The Popping Fields’…

According to Nathan Ballingrud, monsters and ghouls have their own festive places of fun and in ‘Skullpocket’ he invites our participation in a most inventive game and spectacle, after which Livia Llewellyn dictates the terms of unnatural desires and weird shopping in ‘The Mysteries’ before Laird Barron carries us to the big finale in ‘Screaming Elk, MT’ with his compulsive trouble-magnet Jessica Mace falling with eyes wide open into some gruesome difficulties at the more-than-it-seems Gallows Brothers Carnival. Naturally, as soon as she settles in the bodies start piling up…

Harsh, seductive, shocking, spooky, funny and winningly suspenseful, Nightmare Carnival is a bombastic program of perilous passages and macabre moments to amaze and amuse the most jaded fear fiend.
All contents © 2014 their individual originators and owners. All rights reserved.

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George R.R. Martin’s Skin Trade


Adapted by Daniel Abraham & Mike Wolfer (Avatar Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59291-233-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Dark Delight for a Winter’s Night… 9/10

George Raymond Richard Martin has been selling stories since 1970 and winning major awards for them since 1975. As well as his stunning output of dark, emotive, melancholic multilayered novels and short stories in a variety of genres, he has also successfully pursued a parallel career in television (and movies) and even finds time to teach.

His series A Song of Ice and Fire became the TV sensation A Game of Thrones.

Born in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1948, Martin was active in early comics fandom and studied journalism at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois). He remains close to the funnybook and sci fi fan scenes to this day.

At the top of his form he is one of the most potent fantasy voices in the business, with short stories and novels that are witty, compulsive, imaginatively dark, tinged with wry black humour and always uniquely nuanced and atmospheric.

In 1988 his captivating yarn Skin Trade appeared in the fantasy anthology Night Visions 5 (a series he was editing which numbered Steven King, Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell amongst the contributors) offering a decidedly fresh and different interpretation of one of the most hoary (not a misprint) bête noires in fiction…

Now that tale (which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella in 1989) has been adapted as a miniseries by scripter Daniel Abraham and illustrator Mike Wolfer and subsequently collected into a slim and sinister trade paperback to delight another generation of fear freaks who loving feeling their own skins crawl…

Randi Wade is a private detective with a lot of baggage. Not surprising when you think of how her cop dad died years ago. In circumstances still not fully explained, Frank Wade was torn to pieces by some kind of animal at the local meat-packing plant…

Still not over it, she divides her time between bread-and-butter cases whilst investigating the historic killing off the books. Her best friend is effete ineffectual asthmatic Willie Flambeaux – as a repo man, he’s even in the same sort of business – and one night he offers insights regarding a particularly brutal contemporary murder which change Randi’s life forever…

Willie knew the deceased and, assuming Joan Sorenson‘s horrific demise will be covered up by the investigating officers, asks Randi to get involved. He was supposed to meet the victim on the night she died and might be suspect but the real problem is what his own snooping has uncovered.

Joan was found mutilated and might even have been partially consumed by her attacker… just like Randi’s dad…

Willie has not told his friend everything however and later starts calling a few old acquaintances: men like financier Jonathan Harmon, the dark, wealthy untouchable powerbroker whose clan has been secretly running the city forever…

Randi taps her other sources, questioning Barry Shumacher, Editor of The Courier and one of her father’s oldest friends. He tells her there’s no connection to the new killing but she knows he’s lying…

Convinced she’s on to something Randi then storms into police HQ for a conversation with her dad’s old partner and discovers Chief Joe Urquart reviewing files from the missing persons case Frank Wade was working at the time of his death.

It seems the suspect put away for the crimes is out again, but Frank always felt they had the wrong guy anyway. Rather than big, simple-minded poor kid Roy Helander, he favoured the frighteningly strange son of Jonathan Harmon as the perp behind a spate of child disappearances…

Willie meanwhile has been summoned to the Harmon home for an audience with the patriarch and his just-not-right heir Steven…

The case takes a disturbing turn after Randi and Willie compare notes. Joan’s death is apparently unconnected to the cold case as she was chained in silver and flayed before the killer made off with her skin. What Randi doesn’t, disclose is the fact that in Frank’s old files she found a note from prime suspect Roy which simply said “It was a werewolf”…

And then a friend on the force informs her that there’s been a second killing. Someone else close to good old Willie has been skinned alive, and Randi arrives at a terrifying, inescapable conclusion…

All of that is mere scene-setting for the shocks, twists and surprises still in store for Randi as two 20-year mysteries are finally resolved, appalling ambitions and dark desires uncovered and apex predators become cowering victims for something which preys on monsters…

Accompanied by a fifteen-page gallery of covers-&-variants, this splendidly effective blend of crime caper and supernatural thriller is a pure visceral delight no lover of spooky chills can dare to miss.

© 2014 Avatar Press. Skin Trade and all related properties ™ and © 2014 George R. R. Martin.

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The White Room of the Asylum


By Luke Melia, David Anderson, Zev Zimmerman, Bobby Peñafiel, Kat Farjado, Omaik Neiv & Vinny Smith
ISBN: 978-1-50035-876-1

What really happens in our mental institutions?

Who really knows what occurs within troubled minds sequestered for their own good and too frequently at their own request?

Some answers are too appalling to stomach but thankfully political ideology, fiscal neglect and societal disinterest play no part in this inspired dark fantasy of pristine pale reflection…

As I’ve frequently proclaimed, I’m a huge fan of creators with the drive and dedication to take control of their own destinies and that’s never been more splendidly affirmed than with the chilling collaboration between writer (and letterer) Luke Melia and his six illustrative collaborators in this inventively macabre and movingly spooky psycho-drama.

When the police are called to a suicide in a quiet house, it’s just another day for most of them. However for Officer Bardy, tasked with checking the contents of six old audio cassette tapes left with the sad old geezer’s farewell note, the case soon starts to resonate and she finds herself drawn into an incredible story impossible to let go of…

The contents of each tape forms a chapter in a terrifying testament (every one uniquely rendered here by a different artist) and the fantastic voyage begins with David Anderson in ‘The Wicked Relative of the Dreamer’ as the policewoman hears recently deceased Steve describe how he was sectioned in 1982 and admitted to Soraberg Asylum displaying symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

Steve recounts dreams of being chased by a ferocious, distinctly female monster down an endless accusatory corridor and the relentless waking hours spent mixing with or avoiding the other strange residents.

Terrified of facing the horror again, Steve began hurting himself to stay awake but therapist Maggie stepped in and forced the issue and his inevitable return to sleep…

The tone abruptly changes as the recently deceased describes an incredible, impossible phenomenon.

One night when Steve once more found himself pursued by the monster, he was saved by a superhero who revealed himself as taciturn, unfriendly Ralph. In the outside world he was the weird, standoffish cove who had committed himself to Soraberg and spent all day playing chess with withdrawn Julia…

In the dream space Ralph became open and amiable and as they conversed both realised that the featureless limbo was a resource which they could visit at will: a communal landscape to be reshaped by every fleeting whim. Further discourse led them to conclude that the environment was the subject to a cumulative effect: the more you slept, the easier it was to access.

Steve however, as the first to discover it, harboured a strong sense of possessiveness for his “White Room” and didn’t want to share it with any other inmates…

The second tape continues the record with ‘The Suppressed Desires of the Depressive’ (with art by Zev Zimmerman) as idyllic nights of joyous shared adventure in the pale playground were disrupted by the arrival of John the Vegetable who was as loquacious and smart inside as he was comatose and inert in the physical world…

The newcomer was accommodated into the dreamscape but everything changed when Ralph created a simulacrum of Julia as a sexual plaything. After “harmlessly” slaking his desires with the construct in the White Room, the astonished and ashamed Ralph was attacked and nearly killed in the actual asylum by furious Julia, who had somehow experienced every agonising moment of his assault on her proxy…

‘The Relentless Taunting of the Saviour’ (Bobby Peñafiel), begins with another inmate finding his baffled way into the dream world. Persecuted Tim suddenly saw himself in a strange place and able to talk to Steve. The shocked newcomer recounted how Julia suddenly, inexplicably attacked Ralph but was more concerned that here at least he seemed free of the brutal incarnation of Jesus that dictated his every move in the real world: a vicious, man-sized, foul-mouthed, priapic tyrannosaur with impulse issues and a propensity for extreme violence…

When Ralph joined them from his distant hospital bed things seem to settle until Julia suddenly materialised threatening to tell the carers what Ralph had done. In a fit of fury Steve then attacked her for threatening his White World and in the real world her sleeping body died…

‘The Flawed Operation of the Condemned’ (Kat Farjado) found Steve in complete denial as more and more inmates begin continually leaking over into “his” dream world. Soon suppressed hostilities began to manifest, and after John defeated Steve in a spectacular duel of imaginations, the furious schizophrenic threatened to kill the vegetable’s immobile physical form when he went back to the real world.

The act resulted in a schism in the White Room. As everyone else avoided him and played, Steve made plans to escape Soraberg, using the psychoactive landscape to construct a facsimile asylum to practise in…

His big mistake was working with Minefield Frank whose aggressive imagination kept changing the set-up, but before he could get away everything changed again as the first member of staff made his astounded way into the fantasy zone…

With Omaik Neiv handling the art, ‘The Uncertain Conclusion of the Thinker’ saw Steve tortured by helplessness as the medical professionals took charge; methodically transforming the plasmic wonderland into a vast therapeutic environment. Despite his furious insistence that they were all trespassing on his property, the staff began an accelerated program which quickly reaped immense dividends amongst the troubled detainees.

With everyone against him Steve had no choice but to strike back in ‘The Broken Opportunity of the Vegetable’ (illustrated by Vinny Smith), but even against such a remorseless, merciless adversary some of the inmates were not willing to go down without a fight…

Available as a trade paperback and in a kindle edition, the startling events of The White Room of the Asylum are judiciously rendered in a range of palettes from full colour to black & red to overwhelmingly stark monochrome, uniting to highlight the moody power of the narrative and the mesmerising power of the shocking mystery’s conclusion.

Gripping, compulsive and unforgettable, here is a terrifying tale you’d be absolutely crazy to miss.

© 2014 Luke Melia. All rights reserved.