Screamland #1-2 (of 5) – Review

By Harold Sipe (story) & Héctor Casanova (art)

The comic tells the story of present day story of the Universal Monsters, except they’re real people with real problems – trying to work on whatever comes to their hands. For instance, Frankenstein earns his money working for “z class” movies. However, roles are rare because he can’t seem to manage his drinking problem.

One day, he gets a call from Andrea Silverman, his agent, telling him to meet her. Her idea is to cast all the old Universal Monsters making a film adaptation of a Japanese manga dubbed, “MonsterHunter 3000”, based around a girl who gets off on killing monsters. As expected, this sort of thing is highly popular in Japan and Silverman sees a film version as a sure fire hit. With Dracula already on board, Silverman tries to convince “Frank” to do so.

The second issue starts with Frank visiting Dracula’s shrink, something that I never thought I’d see! The rest of the story is dedicated to The Mummy, indirectly, because he’s out of the country with Homeland Security on his trail. Andrea Silverman meets with The Mummy’s business manager, but she’s told that his client won’t be in the movie. Apparently he’s had a rough past, being accused of a murder.

Screamland’s art reminds me of a more detailed version of Ben Templesmith’s work (you decide if that’s a good or bad thing). The cover for #1 is hilarious: Frankenstein posing as a model bare chested in Miami. The story is actually really interesting, too. Growing up watching the monsters movies on Saturday nights, I always wondered what they’d be up to now, even if it’s another medium. I also think it was a smart choice focusing on one monster story per issue. Hopefully, they’ll start the movie before the comic ends! (Grade: B+)

-Daniel Yanez