Eerie #1 – Quick Review

By: David Lapham, Bill Dubay, Christopher A. Taylor, Bruce Jones (writers), Lapham, Dubay, Rafa Garres & Richard Corben (artists), Nate Piekos (letters)

The Story: Eerie is back (after a long time).  Does Dark Horse have enough original material to justify publishing this AND Creepy?

Quick Review: All right…what the heck is going on here?  This first issue of Eerie in decades isn’t “bad”, but one does wonder at the publication strategy that Dark Horse is employing with Eerie and its sister publication, Creepy.

The problem with Eerie #1 is reprint material.  There are four short stories in this issue and two of them are reprints from the old Warren Publishing Eerie magazine.  That is not an appealing strategy.  Dark Horse publishes outstanding quality archival reprints of both Creepy and Eerie.  Or…..if you’re a traditionalist, through the magic of eBay you can track down almost any issue of the old magazines for $15-20/each (although that ashcan Eerie #1 will set you back a pretty penny).  There would even be some merit in reprinting some of the old stories in floppy, single-issue comic format for folks who don’t want to plunk down the bigger bucks for the archival hardcover collections.

Creepy #8 – Review

By: Jeff Parker, Doug Moench, Rick Geary, Dan Braun & Bruce Jones (writers), Colleen Coover, Kelley Jones, Geary, Kyle Baker, Bernie Wrightson (artists) and Coover, Geary & Nate Piekos (letters)

The Story: Another horror anthology guided by Uncle Creepy.

Review: I had mixed feelings on this issue. One one hand, we got a pretty nifty little story from Jeff Parker and Colleen Coover.  Seriously…I don’t think I ever would have imagined that Coover’s breezy and light-hearted style would find its way into the pages of Creepy. But there it is…  And it works so well.  It just goes to show that we shouldn’t assume limitations for creators just because we haven’t seem them do “it” before.  We also got some mighty fine artwork by Kelley Jones and that’s always good.  Jones is an artist who really understands what Creepy is all about and ups his already gothic style to a whole new level.

The War that Time Forgot #1 – Review

By Bruce Jones (writer) Al Barrionuevo (pencils) and Jimmy Palmiotti (inks), Mike Atiyeh (colors)

So, I’m strolling through a comic shop Wednesday and what do I see? It’s a brand new comic book sporting a Neal Adams cover with Enemy Ace and Tomahawk on the cover. Needless to say, I was pumped up for this one. The premise of The War that Time Forgot is that several characters from DC’s war genre are all stuck on Dinosaur Island. While it is a good first issue that introduces the reader to some of the more obscure DC characters, the plot is nowhere to be seen.

Bruce Jones, to his credit, writes a lot of good action scenes – particularly the opening dogfight scene between the main character, Lt. Jones, and a Japanese Zero. Jones definitely did his homework as he is meticulous about all things pertaining to military strategy, vehicles, and equipment. Personally, I don’t have an extensive knowledge of the characters of DC’s war genre, however, Jones does a good job of introducing the characters by not assuming too much of the reader.

I like Al Barrionueveo’s style of art. Recently, it seems that artists draw action scenes from a closer perspective as if to make the reader more involved in the action. Barrionueveo does the opposite, pulling the camera back, which in my opinion creates more clarity to the action. Again, the best scene has to be the opening dogfight scene. The attention to detail, along with some great colors by Mike Atiyeh made the comic for me.

However, introduction of characters and action sequences is all that happens. There is no mention of any type of protagonist except for the clearly obvious dinosaurs running rampant and some vague mention to “other” people on the island. Also, I had just one blaring problem with the dialogue. At one point, Private “Jarhead” Jones traps a Rhinoceros-like creature then continues to blow it up with a hand grenade to stack the meat. When asked why he didn’t use the grenade before, he responds, “We have a limited supply of grenades.” What?!

Arguing over distribution and use of hand grenades aside, The War that Time Forgot is your standard first issue: Action scene, new character, action, new character, rinse, repeat. Hopefully, in the next issue, Jones can show us some reason behind the assembly of these characters and some sort of plot. (Grade: C-)

– Robert Hyland