Creepy #13 – Review

By: Josh Simmons, Dan Braun, Peter Bagge, John Habermas, Cullen Bunn & Archie Goodwin (writers), Dean Haspiel, Bagge, D.W. Frydendall, Lukas Ketner, Tyler Crook and Reed Crandall (art), Nate Piekos & Bagge (letters)

The Story: More short horror stories from Uncle Creepy…

Review: This is another issue where the new Creepy stories don’t quite measure up to the reprinted classic story (Note: There is always a reprinted classic in contemporary Creepy).  The problem these new stories have is that they’re a little too cartoony in their artistic style and that cartooning is often incompatible with anything being truly horrific or unsettling.

The classic reprint in this issue (The Squaw, by Archie Goodwin & Reed Crandall, reprinted from Creepy #13, February 1967), shows how a serious tone can make an outwardly silly story “work”.  The Squaw sees a young couple in Europe on their honeymoon – who are characters only in the sense that they give the reader someone to see the unfolding story through.  They meet a loudmouth American businessman on vacation named Elias.  Why honeymooners want to hang out with a solo male tourist isn’t really explained, but Elias is basically the popular stereotype of Teddy Roosevelt: full of piss and vinegar, seeking danger, talking about animals he’s shot…..  The trio sees a mother cat playing with her kitten and Elias decided to toss a rock at the cats to scare the cats as a joke….except the rock crushes the kitten.  Oh….how the mother cat is pissed off, but she’s just a silly cat.  What can she really do to big man Elias?  Later the group tours the torture museum and Elias insists on getting inside one of the devices just to see what it was like.  You know….he wants ADVENTURE!  Of course, this is a terrible idea and as readers, we KNOW something bad will happen.  As the museum assistant is holding the jaws of the apparatus open and allowing Elias to experience the adrenalin rush of almost being skewered to death, the CAT shows up and claws the assistant’s face, the apparatus slams shut, Elias dies horribly and karmic justice is served.  The End!

Witch Doctor: Malpractice #4 – Review

By: Brandon Seifert (writer), Lukas Ketner (art), Andy Troy (colors)

The Story: With Penny out of action and Dr. Morrow fatally ill, it’s up to “everyman” Eric Gast to save the day.

Quick review: The Witch Doctor series has climbed to a pretty high point in my monthly reading stack.  It’s one of those rare comics that I just KNOW is going to be good before I open it up.  The story will always be clever and funny and the art will always be sumptuous.  As such, it’s one of the few comics that I just sink into and read without a lot of note-taking about the direction of the plot, the plausibility of characters’ actions or flaws in the art.  That simplicity doesn’t mean it’s “the best” comic out there; there are a lot of comics I enjoy like The Unwritten or The Walking Dead or Punk Rock Jesus that cover some challenging material and make you “work for it”.  Witch Doctor is more like Saga: Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Witch Doctor: Malpractice #3 – Review

By: Brandon Seifert (writer), Lukas Ketner (art), Andy Troy (colors)

The Story: Dr. Morrow goes to confront the villains who infected him with a horrible disease.

Review (with trivial SPOILERS): Again, this is another wonderful issue of this series.  Witch Doctor is funny, snappy and expertly illustrated.  There’s really nothing to not love about this title.  If it came out 12 times per year, you’d see it on a lot of people’s “Best ongoing comic” lists.

Witch Doctor: Malpractice #2 – Review

By: Brandon Siefert (writer/letters), Lukas Ketner (art), Andy Troy (colors)

The Story: Dr. Morrow has been infected by a deadly parasite that necessitates some calls for magical help.

Quick review: Usually when I review Witch Doctor, I wax poetic – or try to – about the stunning artwork of Lukas Ketner.  We’ll get into some of the artwork below, but it would be unfair to not give a mention to the clever and fun story that is being written by Brandon Siefert.  There are a lot of parallels to other popular franchises like House, Harry Potter, Ghostbusters and Hellraiser.  I’m sure there are some cynical people out there who disparage anything as being a “knock-off” of some other franchise, but that really isn’t fair as there really aren’t any novel ideas and it all comes down to how well the creators execute of their story of choice.

Witch Doctor: Resuscitation One-Shot – Review

By: Brandon Siefert (writer & letters), Lukas Ketner (art), Andy Troy (colors) & Sina Grace (editor)

The Story: Our titular Witch Doctor runs into a necromancer on a case that has ties to an urban myth about waking up in a tub full of ice.

Five Things: 

1. LOVE these characters! – In 5 short issues (4-issue miniseries, plus this one-shot), this creative team has really made me LOVE these characters.  Dr. Vincent Morrow has this great, hurried swagger where he knows just what the problem is but doesn’t want to suffer any fools along the way.  He’s kinda like a comic version of House without the limp.  Then there is the weirdness of Penny, who looks like the scrawny, heroin addict with stringy hair and a hoodie. But she’s hosting a demon and literally eats monsters for sustenance.  Finally we have Gast, who is the everyman helper and brute force for the team.  It helps to have one “normal” member of the team for the reader to identify with and help us see just how strange their world really is.

2. Art is very Wrightson-esque. – I look at Ketner’s art and it reminds me instantly of Bernie Wrightson.  Hopefully you can appreciate what high praise that is because Wrightson is one of the absolute masters of comic art.  Other times, he reminds me of Tony Harris (again, high praise).  He uses this fine line and pours incredible amounts of detail into his panels.  Unlike a lot of artists whose work gets worse the more detail they add, Ketner’s work get’s better.  This is one of the best looking books that Image is publishing right now (colors too).

3. Whacky paranormal stuff galore. [SPOILER ALERT] – There are all kinds of fun things in here if you like the paranormal.  For starters, it begins with a guy finding himself in a tub full of ice with an incision in his side (Yay!  Urban Myths!).  Only, as it turned out, no one stole his kidneys. The necromancer has put IN the kidney of old Egyptian pharaoh in hopes of bringing him back.  And the necromancer has a familiar that is based on her own stillborn child.  And there’s all the insanity with Penny and her extensible, poison injecting fingers.  It’s just a riot of the wacky and weird.

Witchdoctor #3 – Review

By: Brandon Siefert (writer & letterer), Lukas Ketner (art), Sunny Gho & Andy Troy (colors) & Sina Grace (editor)

The Story: The world around Dr. Morrow begins to come into focus as his gang raids an lair of aquatic beasties.

Review: This is a pretty hot comic.  The first thing that lunges out at me is the incredible art that Lukas Ketner is doing.  Maybe it’s because of the monsters in the series, but it really reminds me of Bernie Wrightson and anytime someone compares your art to Wrightson’s….you’re doing something right.  There’s nothing not to love about this linework from the intricate brushwork to the really cool monster designs.  It’s very nicely colored too.

Actually, that creature design is so important to this issue that it’s hard to confine its discussion to “the art” (as in “I liked the art.  I also liked the story.”).  In one particular sequence, there’s this comatose aquatic monster strapped to the table.  Big, nasty, toothy bastard with fins all over him.  Of course….he busts loose, but before he can do anything he is taken down by one of the main characters: Penny.  We don’t get to see the actual take down, but when we flip the page, Penny has this huge monster in her arms and is eating it .  The visual on Penny is just priceless.  She’s a scrawny 14-ish-year old girl who is possessed by a demon who compels her to eat monsters.  Except that the demon is manifesting through her mouth and she has these weird appendages protruding from her mouth to bite the aquatic dude.  It sounds nasty as I’m typing it, and it is nasty to look at on the page, but it’s pretty rare to get visuals these days that impress in this way.