Nasty Horror

Welcome to day four of the ongoing horse-pounding. We have gone through two stories and an introduction. One of those stories stank  and one was an entertaining romp into the dark recesses of a legendary blues singer.

Side note here: I never even heard of Robert Johnson until this issue of Creepy TNG. I assumed everything was made up for the story. It wasn’t till I read another review of it that I got a hint that it was based on reality (sort of). Who would have thought that a horror comic could actually be educational?

That being said, there was a problem with the editing of this issue. Remind me about it when I am on the second last story. But today I am talking about the third. A snuggly little love-fest called Chemical 13.

In my original review of Creepy I blew past this one with the remark that it was a waste of ink and I didn’t want to write about it, because it annoyed me so much. But my attention was called to it by another review on another blog.

In that post the reviewer actually chose this story as his favorite in the entire book. Odd, since a few sentences earlier he praised the publication  for not being just a collection of zombie stories (as are so prevalent these days), when the story in question is actually a zombie story! The only one in the book and not even a good one.

When I first got to this story I had mixed thoughts right off the bat. It was a Nazi story. I have nothing against those per se, but they tend to be done too often because they are easy. And, many times, they are not good. The authors seem to think that because the Nazis were interesting, then their story will be,  simply because it includes them.

Yes, you and I know things don’t work that way, but inexperienced authors fool themselves all the time. They mistake a cool idea for a good story. A good story can carry a lousy idea, but the best idea in the world cannot carry a lousy story. It’s a fact folks. Don’t shoot me; I’m only the messenger. Chemical 13 fails on a few levels.

The waste of ink in this issue was overwhelmingly The Curse. Chemical 13 didn’t suck outright. It just wasn’t good. The lovely gray-scale art style used for it set a mood, and was the main reason I expected more from the story than it delivered.

It could have been much better. The basic plot is that the German’s round a bunch of naked men into a room and then gas them. The twist is that they are trying an experimental gas called chemical 13. The origin of the gas, and the reason for trying it are ignored. But it’s a short story so I give them that.

After the gassing is over, the naked men, we’ll call them Jews for short, are seen to still be alive. With no reason given, one of the soldiers totally freaks out when he looks in the room. They carry this freak-out across two pages before they finally get around to showing what he saw. Then what they show, looks merely like a bunch of naked Jews standing there.

I can’t speak for Nazis, but seeing live Jews when I was expecting dead ones is not very frightening to me. At the end of the day, this is a comic book. That means it is illustrated. Between the writing and the illustrations they should be able to convey the concept one way or the other. In this case, neither of them did their job.

At this point, I started not liking this story. When one of the officers peeks in, he announces that the stuff did not work and that they should flood the room with the usual stuff. But some Doctor argues with him and says that these men are actually dead, but standing anyway. And that he needs to examine them.

Here it comes…

They know that they have a room full of undead Jews. They know that they have a gas available to ‘finish the job‘. They know that something is very badly wrong, and that one of their soldiers is in complete mental collapse and that the officer present ordered them to use the regular gas (no I will not say the name of it. It’s historical you can look it up if you like), so what could make more sense, than to decide to open the door and have a bunch of guys walk into the room?

This bad decision is followed by much screaming and shooting and running and locking helpless pleading Nazis in the chamber to, no doubt, be devoured by a room full of angry Jewish vegetables.

This story fails on so many levels, it really seems as though no one involved really put any thought nor effort into it at all. The term phoning it in leaps to mind.

I rescind my original scathing indictment of this particular story. It is not an abomination. It is merely lame.

Come back tomorrow for the next exciting installment of Creepy or Crappy?

On the menu for tomorrow, kiddies, is All The Help You Need, a manic tale of food and loathing.

See the way I did that? Casting The Curse under a new light? Get It? I am so funny it makes me want to hurl.(baby bunnies into a ceiling fan)

Now let’s get right to it, shall we. The first story in Dark Horse’s Creepy #1 is called The Curse and was written by Joe Harris and imaged by Jason Shawn Alexander. It is the spooky tale of a young man’s discovery of a special creepy power and the shocking family secret that his mother has been hiding. That’s what it is supposed to be. I feel a need to warn you that if you keep reading I will spill the beans, regardless of how few beans I have available for spilling.

Before I gnaw into this particular bone I want to tell you something of the people involved in making it. Joe Harris has a website at JoeHarris.net. Click that if you want to see it.

He has written for a while and has done some very cool shit. He wrote the screenplay for Darkness Falls! One of the coolest strange-type movies ever. So if you want my opinion of Joe’s abilities, I think he’s a talented guy, very creative.

The other part of the equation is Jason Shawn Alexander. Normally I get really annoyed by folks who use more than two names.  But in this case it’s cool because without the Shawn he would be that guy from Seinfeld. So it’s ok that he use the big long name because he needs it, plus the fact that he is actually brilliant.

He has a site at www.JasonShawnAlexander.com and the other is his blog at BloodAndWhisky.blogspot.com. (which is great name) Again you can get to either by clicking on them. If you do, you will see that he experiments with different styles. He uses varied subjects and much of his stuff is good.

It’s depressing, but that isn’t a bad thing. He even has an artist statement that rambles on about goofy things involving “meaning” and “depth” and that sort of crap. Standard stuff for fine artists. Again I am not saying any of this is bad. On the contrary it shows that he has trained for real at some point and is trying to be as complete and professional an artist as possible. I know that I tend to be sardonic at times, and I want it understood that I like this guys stuff.

Neither Joe nor Jason can be considered hacks, or amateurs. Dark Horse is also not a lightweight. They rank highest in sales over every other comic company outside Marvel and DC. The reason for that, is they know what they are doing. All these people know what they are doing. Which leaves no excuse for them to have done what they did, which is create and publish The Curse.

The Curse, flat out, stinks on ice.

Jason can do brilliant art. The art in this piece is at the bottom end of his stuff to begin with. Then it commits the unforgivable sin of detracting from the story. At least it would have, if there had been a story from which to detract. Which brings me to the next point.

It all started in English class…

Recall the basic structure of a plot—A person wants something, faces and obstacle and takes action to overcome it. That’s it. It’s not that damn tough. The Curse seems to get off on the right foot.  A young man working in a printing shop wants to get off work on time. His nasty big fat ugly boss woman, hates him and won’t let him have off. Like I said, lame plot, but it is a plot, until the second page where she is eaten by a press.

That was the end of his obstacle. That was the end of his struggle. And that was the end of the plot. In order for there to be more story there has to be more standing in his way. There isn’t.

Then he realizes that he has this power that can make what he thinks, happen. And he proceeds to use it all over town, causing great harm to others and with no opposition at all. Also greatly absent are any feelings about it on his part. He is not even remotely horrified by the fact that he mutilated a woman, and maimed an innocent hot dog vendor. He just thinks it’s cool that he can get off work on time and save $2 on the hot dog.

This main character is about as deep as a rattle snake. No one is gunning for him. He has no foes, or resistance. And apparently no morals either. So when he finally wanders  home after a long day of effortlessly torturing people and not even enjoying it, we don’t really care what he says to his headless mother. (She has a head, but they go to great pains to make sure that it is not in any of the frames. It is done so awkwardly that it is blatant. If it was intended to mask an oncoming surprise, it didn’t.)

Nor are her evasive answers in any way intriguing or suspenseful. The only emotion I felt at this point was—obviously they had to get the page count higher. What a freakin’ waste. It’s sad really.

When they have wasted enough space and get around to showing the “shock” image, (his mother’s ugly face) it sucked on so many levels I can’t list them all, but I will mention the big ones.

I had a spoiler alert earlier in this article. I apologize for that. I can’t actually tell you the ending because I don’t know what the hell it even was. After much kvetching they cut to his momma’s ugly puss and through a combination of poor writing, bad or no story-boarding, or a poor choice of rendering styles I honestly had no idea what it was showing. I could see it was a shrivelled puss, but beyond that I was sincerely clueless. Was she dead? Was she rotted? Was she really old? Was she from the end of the movie Psycho?

If any of these is what it was supposed to be, then… Did she die at that moment because he wished it? Or had he been keeping his dead mother’s body alive with his “power”. (That would be cool) Or did she just rot because he told her to stop using the power? Because of the head-out-of-frame trick, you have no way of knowing what she looked like before.

The first part of a series should raise more questions than it answers. And this piece certainly did that. Unfortunately I don’t think it raised the ones that the creators intended, like what happens next? Or, what will he do? But instead it raised questions like…

What where they thinking?

And, Why would two guys who have done so many cool things do something this shitty? And why do all these other reviewers praise this turd?

Well kiddies, I have some multiple choice answers for you. Take what you want and leave the rest:

Q-What were they thinking?

A-They were thinking it was good. No one deliberately sets out to do shitty work, and fewer people release it if they have. The episodic nature of this piece increases the risk of putting out shit. Because they know what’s coming in the entire series, and they know how cool it will get, it becomes easy to miss the lameness of the opening.

Q-Why would they do something this lame?

A-For the money. Most of the audience for this comic may not even know the difference between good stories and bad ones. They may have read comics in English class instead of paying attention. ( I know I did, but I made up for it later) So if the intended audience will lay their money down for shit and come back for more, Fuck ‘Em. Why should we put out something good, when we can make money with crap? Sad, but the way many entertainment companies think. ( I am not saying this about Dark Horse. It is merely an observation about entertainment business companies.)

Q-Why do all these other reviews praise this piece of shit, as though it is a glittering gem amongst scum-covered stones?

A-It could be because they like it. It’s possible. It could be that it is they who did not pay attention in class. They could be idiots. They could be writing reviews for their own agendas. Like maybe they are just filling up their blogs and aren’t really trying to help. Or they don’t really care about horror comics. There are many reasons. Perhaps they didn’t really read the thing. Or maybe they just like these two guys and are therefore giving them a pass. Any of these things is possible. I have no great insight about any of this. Which brings me to the best reason of all…

I may be wrong.

Join us again tomorrow folks as I delve deep into the depths of Hell Hound Blues.