{"id":17834,"date":"2018-01-16T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2018-01-16T08:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=17834"},"modified":"2018-01-15T15:30:22","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T15:30:22","slug":"tales-from-the-dreamspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2018\/01\/16\/tales-from-the-dreamspace\/","title":{"rendered":"Tales from the Dreamspace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Luke Melia<\/strong>, Vinny Smith<\/strong>, Bobby Pe\u00c3\u00b1afiel<\/strong>, David Anderson<\/strong>, Dennis O’Shea<\/strong>, Timothy Conroy<\/strong>, Steve Andrews<\/strong>, Rees Finlay<\/strong>, Jonny Pearson<\/strong> & various (Dreamspace Comics\/CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
\nISBN: 978-1-97629-398-6<\/p>\n

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 why it’s such a delight to see another splendid home-grown tome from Luke Melia and his trusty band of cartoon collaborators.<\/p>\n

Comprising comic strips, illustrated prose pieces and a scattershot selection of short, sharp, mood-setting epigrams, this particular package of perils stems from a communal spooky story session which grew into an online competition and resulted in the blood-curdling book of fearsome phantasms before us today.<\/p>\n

Committed to full-colour paperback form as a macabre and unsettling graphic grimoire, the uneasy experiences begin with the true story of Dreamspace’s inception, after which a few tone-teasing text titbits lead into a darkly twisted hostage situation with ‘It’s in the Basement’.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scripted by Luke Melia and illustrated by Bobby Pe\u00c3\u00b1afiel, the monster is designed by Christopher Wallace. It’s not what you’re thinking\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Following more zingy scary word-salads, Melia then segues into prose to propose a morally confounding challenge with a devastated mother failing in her own eyes and subsequently taking horrific steps to correct ‘The Imbalance’<\/em> before David Anderson & Steve Andrews resort to potent monochrome to expose – and expedite – a distressingly Kafkaesque ‘Skeleton in the Closet’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The micro-yarns are by many and varied contributors and suitably divide all the longer tales, which resume now with Dennis O’Shea’s prose piece ‘Motel’<\/em> revealing the awful aftermath of a well-nasty Boy’s Night Out, whereas coal black humour and sordid surreality colour an extended strip-saga splatter-fest of misbegotten youth, vengeance paid in full and the ‘Bath time Bastard’<\/em>, courtesy of Melia, Vinnie Smith & Pe\u00c3\u00b1afiel\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Anderson switches to prose mode for a macabre tale of dystopian survival in ‘The Rat Queen’ <\/em>after which Rees Finlay & Jonny Pearson illumine a shocking plunge into detention, demonic delirium and ‘Damnation’<\/em> before Melia & Timothy Conroy revisit Beauty and the Beast via the wedding vows with ‘In Sickness’<\/em> to bring the shock therapy to a close\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Like previous outings Oculus<\/strong> and The White Room of the Asylum<\/strong>, this compendium of bloody wit, dark humour and caustic circumstance is judiciously rendered in a range of palettes from full colour to black & red to overwhelmingly stark black-&-white, all combining to highlight the morbid power of narrative in service to night terrors: a menu of compulsive and terrifying tales you’d be absolutely crazy to miss, but wisest to peruse with the doors locked and all the lights on.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2017 Luke Melia. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Luke Melia, Vinny Smith, Bobby Pe\u00c3\u00b1afiel, David Anderson, Dennis O’Shea, Timothy Conroy, Steve Andrews, Rees Finlay, Jonny Pearson & various (Dreamspace Comics\/CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform) ISBN: 978-1-97629-398-6 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 why it’s such … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Tales from the Dreamspace”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,66,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-british","category-horror-stories","category-mature-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-4DE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}