Creepy #10 – Review

By: Doug Moench, Dan Braun, Peter Bagge, Matt Weinhold, Jim & Ruth Keegan, Bob Jenney & John Arcudi (writers), Kelley Jones, Bagge, Darick Robertson, Richard P. Clark, the Keegans, Jenney and Richard Corban (art), Nate Piekos, Bagge & Keegans (letters)

The Story: Creepy goes all Lovecraftian

Review: There is a segment of the comic readership that goes ga-ga over Lovecraft.  Personally, I’ve never really gotten it; I’ve read some Lovecraft recently and just thought it was “okay”–not “bad”, not “great”–just “okay and I never need to read more of that.”  The other thing I’ve observed about Lovecraft as an outsider is that his fans have the most hardcore fringe that I can think of online.  Seriously, these people put comic fans who fight about old versions of the Captain America uniform to shame.  They put Republicans and Democrats fighting about gay marriage to shame.  They put sports fans to shame.  So, I will candidly say that when I open Creepy #10 and see that it is an all-Lovecraft issue, my brain says, “SHIELDS UP!  ARM PHOTON TORPEDOES AND READY THE PHASER BANKS!”

Fatale #1 – Review

by Ed Brubaker (writing), Sean Phillips (art), and Dave Stewart (colors)

The Story: Mysterious assassins in bowler hats!  Exploding airplanes!  Cultists!  Nazis!

The Review: Breathe a sigh of relief:  Fatale is just as good as you were hoping it might be and only further substantiates the fact that the team of Brubaker and Phillips can do no wrong.

However, Fatale is a very different beast from Criminal, Incognito, or Sleeper.  While, by Brubaker’s own admission, all of these series were meant to be distillations of everything he and Phillips love about comics, nowhere does this feel truer than Fatale.  This is clearly a book where Brubaker and Phillips have thrown together all the stuff they enjoy and the result is a book that feels exciting.

This is particularly the case when it comes to the books genre.  At different points, it’s a noir/crime comic, a mystery, a horror, and a pulpy action/spy comic.  Really, in one issue, Brubaker touch upon so many different sorts of pulp fiction that it’s actually mind-boggling that this actually coheres.  But cohere it does, and what we get is one very unique and compelling kind of beast.  It’s a hybrid of all these genres with all of their various strengths.  The horror elements are gruesome, the action/spy stuff is exciting, and the crime/mystery elements tantalize.

And really, what all this leads to is a comic where you never know what to expect.  You’re never sure when and where the high-spots will come.  As such, Fatale is a book that keeps you riveted and keeps you reading.  On one page, you get a thrilling car chase reminiscent of the famous airplane sequence in North by Northwest, at other points you get that psychological, moody narration fans of Criminal will be familiar with, and then, flip the page, and you’ve got gruesome Satanic rituals and hints of the paranormal, and mysterious Nazi flashbacks.  Fatale is truly a book that is full of turbulence, constantly throwing you for a loop yet always keeping you anchored to its world and it’s developing story.  Not only do you not know what to expect, but Brubaker leaves us with so many fascinating questions.  In many ways, it’s a crime and noir comic where the presence of the paranormal makes anything possible.

Neonomicon #3 – Review

By: Alan Moore (writer), Jacen Burrows (art), Juanmar (colors) & William Christensen (editor)

The Story: After a horrible scene to end the last issue, what will become of Agent Brears who had been kidnapped by some Lovecraftian cult and offered up as a sex toy to some water monster/god-thing.

What’s Good: It is pretty hard to get an emotional rise out of me.  I’ve consumed enough media in my life that it is really hard to make me get skeeved out or horrified by fictional subject matter, but the ending of Neonomicon #2 where our heroine, Agent Brears, was kidnapped and gang raped by some weird Lovecraft-inspired cult in a bizarre underground bath/grotto before being offered up as a sex toy to some monster from the deep really freaked me out.  It was “freaked out in a good way”, but it was one of those rare comics that stuck with me as I plowed through my 60+ long pull list for a few months since the last issue came out.  What would happen to Brears?

If anything, the last issue steeled your emotions for what was to come in this issue.  What happens is still horrid and you just cannot imagine being stuck in a situation as terrible as where Brears finds herself in this issue: locked in the grotto with a randy sea monster for days on end.  The whole thing is just vile and no punches are pulled in depicting the horror that she endures.  But, no one normal wants to read rape-comics and Alan Moore understands this, so he ends this comic with [SPOILERS] Brears and the monster forming some kind of bond and the monster taking her (willingly) out into the ocean and (we would assume) his lair.  I really can’t wait to see what happens next.

As all of this is going on, we see that the FBI is looking high and low for their missing agents.  And, between these scenes and a hallucination that Brears has, we see Moore noodling with the concept that there is truth in Lovecraft and even if he didn’t appreciate it as he wrote his works, he was channeling something bigger into his writings.  Lovecraft fans will have a field day with this, I am sure.

If Moore is pitching this story, Burrows is the one knocking the visuals out of the park.  It isn’t so much that you look at the page and say, “Wow, that is nice art.”  This is more of a triumph of storytelling in terms of what to show and what not to show or when things should be revealed to the reader.  It is just nice to see creators using the medium of comics to its fullest extent.

The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft #1 – Review

By Mac Carter (Story), Tony Salmons (Pencils & Inks), and Adam Byrne (Colors)

The Story: Writer H.P. Lovecraft has got a bad case of heartache and a worse case of writer’s block. Odd for a man who’s mind is loaded all sorts of macabre things. But a string of events changes things and soon Lovecraft is thinking about his masterwork…

What’s Good: Mac Carter does a wonderful job creating just the right tone for a story about the life of the famous horror author. The dialogue effectively captures the liveliness of the 1920’s (as does most of the stylized artwork), while Lovecraft’s inner monologues manage to be melancholy, sinister, and frustrated all at the same time. Carter makes you feel for the brooding writer, doing a really impressive job of writing the monologues in a way that reflects the style of Lovecraft’s works.

The story itself is off to a good start, though it’s a bit too early to tell whether things will successfully and satisfyingly play out in only four issues. Enough happens in chapter one to hook the reader, but it’s mostly all set up. That said, it’s some pretty solid set up.

What’s Not So Good: The artwork by Tony Salmons and Adam Byrne is really hit or miss throughout the book. And it proves to be frustrating because when the visuals work, they work really well. For every few scenes that do an admirable job of capturing the story and the setting, there is one that looks off in some way. Either the coloring is far too dark and muddy or the action is delivered in a confusing manner.

Conclusion: The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft is off to a promising start. The writing delivers in a big way and, if the visuals can do an effective job of playing catch up, I think the mini-series could deliver in a big way. I recommend it for fans of the author and fans of supernatural stories in general.

Grade: B

-Kyle Posluszny

NEWS: Joe Hill’s Locke & Key collection HC, New series in 2009

When novelist Joe Hill created his first-ever comic book series, Locke & Key, it took fans by surprise. The New York Times best-selling novelist had never created a new series expressly for comics before. But the book arrived to critical acclaim and to sold-out numbers. Further, it was optioned by Dimension Films. Now fans have a chance to experience the first storyline, Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft, in a deluxe hardcover edition.

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft, featuring the stunning art of Gabriel Rodriguez (Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show), is being released on October 1 in a hardback edition that features the first six-issue storyline, a complete cover gallery, conceptual sketches by Rodriguez, and an all-new introduction from best-selling mystery novelist Robert Crais (Chasing Darkness).

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft tells of the Locke family, who relocate after an unspeakable tragedy to Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them… and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all…

The Locke & Key story continues next year as well. Hill and Rodriguez pick up where this story leaves off with the next story in the ongoing saga, January’s Locke & Key: Head Games #1.

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft, a 152-page, $24.99 hardcover, will be available on October 1. Diamond order code JUL08 4052.

Locke & Key #1 – Review

By Joe Hill (written), Gabriel Rodriguez (art) & Jay Fotos (colors)

I bought two of Joe Hill’s books, but I never read them (a novel and a short stories compilation). They’re supposed to be good and the critics were praising his work before the revelation of who Hill’s father (Stephen King!) came to be. What’s also interesting is this book has already been optioned as a movie. So, is it any good?

Locke & Key’s story is told through flashbacks. Two teen psychos attack and murder a father of three siblings. Eventually, the older brother gets his revenge as well as his mother. After the funeral they move to a mansion called Keyhouse, in Lovecraft, Massachusetts (you can probably see where this is going with a town by that name). The youngster roaming inside the mansion finds a key, and opens a door. When he crosses through only his spirit does leaving his shell of a body behind. Scared, he goes back through the door, wakes up back in his body, and slams the door shut.

I’m really intrigued by all the doors that dwell in this mansion and the different effects they’ll impose on the people that cross them. For a first issue, it’s an excellent read, and a sharp supernatural thriller. The comic costs $3.99 as many IDW comics do, but I can’t complain too much on the price this time. You get 32 pages of story, a glossy “key” on the cover (okay, it’s a little gimmicky), and one heck of a debut issue. (Grade: B+)

-Daniel Yanez