Haunt of Horror: Lovecraft #1 (of 3) – Review

Richard Corben (writer, artist)

This is the beginning of the second Haunt of Horror mini-series (the first featured the tales of Edgar Alan Poe) by Richard Corben for Marvel’s Max line. It’s an attractive package with a heavy cardstock cover and featuring some gorgeous black and white art (with gray wash-tones). The collection contains three stories: Dagon, based on a Lovecraft short story, The Scar (after Lovecraft’s Recognition) and A Memory, both based on poems. As a nice touch is the text of the original source material which is included after each story; they serve as a story divider.

The typical features of Lovecraft’s milieu are well represented here: The unmentionable, ancient creeping horrors in remote corners of the globe that drive the mind from rational thought to madness. As a true Lovecraft aficionado, I tend to look at this work with a more critical eye. The more general comics reader can enjoy this work as either an intro to Lovecraft or as an appreciation of the work of Richard Corben – one of the true legends still working in the field.

In The Scar, Corben makes great use of the black and white printing and proves himself a master of light and shadow. A torch plays a significant role in the story and the stark contrast of torchlight highlighting facial features against black backgrounds is beautifully rendered throughout the story – a joy to behold if you like that sort of thing. At the risk of sounding silly, I’ll admit that A Memory is almost entirely worth it just for the rendering of the gloves on the second page of the story. Go ahead, take a look, and tell me they don’t look plush; you’re in the hand of a master craftsman here.

While The Memory involves more blood and guts than the other two stories it’s a more understated use of gore. It’s there but it doesn’t overpower. The focus is on the emotional content as revealed through the facial features of the characters involved. All in all a very effective story with a bit of a twist ending not unlike an old Marvel monster story.

I enjoyed this issue a good deal. Lately I’ve been into the old black and white magazines, like Creepy and Eerie that weren’t quite my cup of tea when I was younger. This comic very much has the feel of those books, and I do believe Corben did work for those titles back in the 70’s. While I regret missing the Haunt of Horror series dedicated to Poe I will be looking to pick it up in trade. And I am definitely looking forward to the next issue of this three part miniseries. (Grade: A)

– Arthur Cooke

The Punisher: Force of Nature #1 (One-Shot) – Review

By Duane Swierczynski (writer), Michel Lacomb (art), Stephane Peru (colors)

When I first glanced at the cover I thought this was going to be some weird Punisher versus Moby Dick tale. As beautiful as the cover is, my interest immediately waned.

Thankfully, I was wrong. Set in Garth Ennis’ insane Marvel Max corner of the universe, this one-shot features the cold, ruthless, and gratuitous version of the Punisher that we all love. Clocking in at 35 pages, this story features Frank Castle toying with a trio of two-bit criminals as he tries to get to foil the plans of the bigger fish in the game – the Russians. What’s funny about these lowlifes is one of them is so cocky that he actually names his own yacht after himself!

The Punisher sinks their new yacht and puts some of his own goodies in with their life raft. What follows is a slow, sad series of events as the three criminals struggle to survive aboard their life raft. As hours and days pass, the criminals’ begin to lose any hope of being rescued. Then, paranoia and despair set in. The Punisher watches this all unfold from afar, taking pleasure in their misery.

Interestingly enough, the Punisher takes a secondary role in this book. Sure, he facilitates all the mayhem, but this story is really about the criminals’ struggle to survive out at sea. It’s obvious that these criminals will die, that’s just the Punisher’s way, but how they arrive at their demise is what makes this such a well crafted story. Great artwork by Michel Lacomb compliments this story. My only complaint is the $4.99 price tag – ouch. (Grade: B)

– J. Montes