American Vampire is a new and exciting horror comic, which simply by looking at the cover seems as though it’s a vampire story set in the American old West. The contributing talent to this book includes Scott Snyder Raffael Albuquerque and Stephen King. Inside the book, Scott Snyder is listed as the writer. Rafael Albuquerque is listed as the artist. And then the miscellaneous credits include Dave McCaig- coloring and Steve Wands did the lettering. Rafael Albuquerque cover art editor Mark Doyle. American vampire created by Scott Snyder. All of which makes me wonder how Stephen King fits into all this.

After the story, which runs the usual 24 pages. There is an editorial by Scott Snyder, entitled On The Ledge There is also a list of other comic books, and titles available from Vertigo. Vertigo is the publisher of American Vampire. And this one I hold in my hands is issue number one. The date on it is May 10 with a cover price of $3.99 as you can see from the picture, the cover art is pretty. The inside art is a bit quirky, and I like it. It has good use of color and highlight. The ads in the magazine break it up at just the right points. Overall it has a good look and feel, very solid and very well done.

I haven’t read the whole thing yet. This isn’t a review of the story. It’s a review of the comic itself. I would absolutely recommend anybody buy it. (this assumes you like vampire comics) You can do it by clicking on any mention of the title in this post.

Stay tuned in a soon-to-be future post. I will do a review of the actual story(s) and/or a more in-depth study of the art stylings and such. It also has a preview of Area 10 as a bonus. That looks cool.  I will have to get it. If it’s any good I will let you know.

That’s all for today. If anyone has anything to add, feel free. (or feel freely, whichever makes you happier)

PS-Actually this thing is into multiple printings now. So I’m guessing it’s fairly popular.

PPS-And I have been told that Mr. King created the storyline. If anyone actually knows, tell ME about it will you? Thanks.

Nasty Horror began about a year ago. At which time I invisioned having the coolest horror blog ever with tons of comics stuff. That didn’t happen.

The only real things here were reviews of  Dark Horse’s Creepy Magazine (Creepy, issue #2), and  the most recent Roman Dirge’s original Lenore. That’s not very much.

In reviewing the blog I noticed that I tend to write long posts.  Many of my posts are 1000 to 2500 words long. This made it both hard  for me to write them quickly, and  difficult for people to trudge through them. This prevented me from writing the coolest latest breaking news, simply because I either couldn’t figure out how to stretch it out to 2000 words, or I resisted starting a post realizing how long it would take.

The Day It Changed

How could I write detailed, humorous and informative stuff, and still be able to update the blog frequently? After much kvetching and tap-dancing, I had a revelation. The answer was obvious.  I am changing the format of the Nasty.  I am splitting my horror coverage into two different entities. One will have complete articles and the other, short but powerful nuggets.

The short news flashes and such will be right here.  The longer stuff (the specials) will only be in the newsletter.  It is called the Nasty Horror Newsletter. (I paid an ad guy a lot of money to think that one up) Only people who sign up for it will get it.

I will be posting a link to sign up and a more detailed description, once the first issue is finished.  In the mean time just enjoy the new format of the blog and never pet your cat from the tail forward.  It really pisses them off. (Unless they’re Persians.  It’s near impossible to annoy a Persian.)

Come back soon, because the posts will be much more frequent now.

PS – After looking around at many other horror comic sites, I have taken a solemn vow to never refer to my readers as “kiddies”. I intended it as an homage to Stephen King’s Creepshow.  But I have since noticed that everyone does it.   So I will think of  something else.   I’m a writer.  That’s what I do.

Another gorgeous cover from Eric Powell.

Welcome back kiddies!

Well, as some of you may remember. I did, not only a review of the original Creepy, but I revisited it several times and in doing so did a review of each and every tale  in Dark Horse’s resurrected classic Creepy, issue number one. This is a new imagining in the tradition of the old EC style comics, more specifically in the vein of a few lovely comics published throughout the 60s and 70s by Warren publishing,

Dark Horse has apparently gotten rights to a lot of the original Creepy and Eerie material . Eerie was a sister publication to Creepy. Creepy was published bimonthly and Eerie was published bimonthly as well. So that each one would come out the month that the other one did not. The end result being a monthly horror comic. Very clever idea.

The new Dark Horse’s Creepy is supposed to come out quarterly. The second issue took a month longer than it was supposed to get the stores. I am told by the personable and brilliant gentleman who runs the comic book store (who, by way of fact, has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of all things comic.) that Dark Horse, often runs late on publication dates. I never fault a company for having practical issues they have to deal with. It’s lateness originally annoyed me, but only because I was afraid it wouldn’t come out at all. Once it finally hit the stands. I bought it.

Like the first one, it has 48 pages, all black-and-white except for the cover, which is again illustrated by Eric Powell, who I believe I’ve praised heavily from the first issue. He does beautiful work and I’m interested in doing some reviews on his other works. Maybe even an interview with him about his pre-Creepy works. Comment heavily if you want interviews.

Issue number one had 48 fear filled pages, whereas, issue number two has 48 pages of bloodsoaked terror, I don’t know about you, but I vastly prefer bloodsoaked terror to fear filled pages.

I don’t intend to beat this particular horse. This publication, which I am holding in my hand right now as I’m writing this has a cohesiveness that the first one did not achieve. The first one looked like a bunch of random crap slapped together between two covers. This one looks like it was meant to be between these two covers, if it sounds to you like I’m leading up to a good review of number two. You have a good ear. (or eye, if you are not having this read to you)

Eric Powell did a beautiful job on the cover. I love it. The contents of this issue are six stories. Although one of them isn’t a story. It is a vignette about the history of horror. That’s the Loathsome Lore, and one of them was not made originally for this publication. It’s actually a reprint from the old Creepy Magazine, and this is something else that I have to talk about.

In the original,(Dark Horse Creepy Issue #1) they screwed the pooch on this last one. I had read through a mediocre magazine and the last story in it, a reprint from a classic era of this magazine, was a science fiction, not  horror. It was very disappointing to all concerned. Someone at Dark Horse is actually reading my blog.  Or (more likely) my opinion reflects popular opinion. Therefore they heard a lot of people saying the same things as I.

	This guy is up to something.

The opening story is titled  Human Nature and a character named Walter fancies himself a great judge of character.  He stands in a crowded area looking at one person after another and imagines  their stories. What’s going on in their head, and so forth. He makes a judgment call on a person that turns out to be completely wrong and the consequences of how the story turns out afterward, at the very least, belong in this magazine.

The second story is a beautiful idea, everything about it is done really well. The the title is Muscle-Car and involves a car that runs on meat. You can probably guess where this one goes, but you really have to see it get there. It’s done really well and in this particular case, the harsh black-and-white style works. Next one.

The third story in the book is called Drawn-Out. This one is an absolute classic, instantly recognizable as the style and genre and the way these things are supposed to be. I can’t say enough about it. I may have to do another review just talking about how good this is and why.

Then we come to the one I was worried about part two of The Curse. longtime fans of me will remember the curse as being the single stinkiest story in the entire first issue. It stank on ice, and I said that at that time, Because both of the men involved usually do amazing work, it was weird that this sucked so hard.. Fortunately it wasn’t the first story in the magazine, this time. It was relegated to fourth place.

I also mentioned that the artwork and the writing were so bad that when they got to the “shocking” end panel you couldn’t tell if his mother was dead, or just ugly or rotted. Or if she died just at that moment or she’d been dead for hundreds of years. So, I must quote Uncle Creepy. “When we last saw poor Jude, his boring life had taken a terrible, twisting turn. Soon after discovering he had the power to manipulate reality and make people think something was real, that really wasn’t… he found out his mother had been manipulating his own reality all along. His mother was dead. He’d been living a lie. But then, that’s the way things go when you’re saddled with… The Curse part two.”

So they explained what wasn’t clear in the first episode. That helped.

The artwork isn’t anywhere near as annoying as it was in the first one. Some of the panels are actually good. The main character still has a slimy persona. We find out that he killed his mother and then hangs around some weird friends and toward the end he does some kind of perverted justice on somebody. I couldn’t tell if he was doing it to get his jollies by hurting someone. Or if he was actually saving someone from somebody else’s dark fantasy. Tough call, but at least it’s more interesting than the first one was.

Now I see there will be a third one. So all I can hope is that we’ll also be interesting. I also hope it will be the last one.

The second last piece is Loathsome Lore and is just a little overview of some old torture devices with nice illustrations of people being tortured with such devices. This one is done by Angelo Torres. I love Angelo Torres art, but Hilary Barta did a much better job Although, that being said, this is still gorgeous. It’s not a matter of comparing a good artist or bad artist. It’s a matter of comparing an artist with one style to an artist with a different style and both good. I merely think that Hilary’s style worked better for this piece.

I don’t know if this caption really needs another caption, but I did it anyway.

Then we come to The Shadow of the Axe. This story is absolutely gorgeous. I don’t know what it was originally taken from, other than Creepy. The artwork is flawless, has a lot of really good lighting. Excellent use of onomatopoeia.

If any one of these stories had been in issue number one, it would have made the entire issue worth the five bucks. Now imagine having all five of these in one magazine. They could charge $25 for this magazine, and it would be worth every penny. I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked. I’m chomping at the bit I can’t wait to get my hands on number three. (but given the Horse’s tendency to miss deadlines, I’m sure I will be waiting quite a while)

…one more thing.

I remember complaining about their choice of shiny stock in the first issue. It might be my imagination, although the stock in the new issue is as smooth and seems almost as thin. It does have a little bit more body, I’m not sure if they actually did use a slightly better paper. Or if this was a normal anomaly of manufacturing or if maybe the contents of the magazine impressed me so much it made me think it was better paper. In any case, I love love love this issue. If I can figure out any way to do it there will be a link here for you to be able to buy it. If not then go to your local comic book dealer and ask for it if you don’t see it. I am definitely on board for Creepy number three, which should be out sometime in late January or February.(If we’re lucky)

Please join me again tomorrow kiddies, when I will be talking about something other than Creepy. I’ve been finding a lot of good websites out on the net with some very nice horror related stuff. I also found new comic books with a lot of good horror stuff. I intend to get the hardcover books by Roman dirge of the collected Works of Lenore, which have now been colored (they were originally black and white, duh). I also have all four issues of the new Richard Corben Work, called Star: The Slayer.

I found this lovely site the other day.  It seems to have much info about various comics and other forms of horror art.  It is at comicmonsters.com.  Go check it out.

As is my tradition I shall list them in reverse scariness order.

10 Monster Mash–This classic of holiday airplay is probably known to everyone in ear shot of this blog.  I haven’t much to say about it.  It isn’t really scary though.

9 Wildfire-What the fuck is wrong with these people?  Did the horse run away?  Was it taken up by demons? Did the singers girlfriend run off with it? Or was this guy fucking this animal?  Perhaps this was the love theme from Equus.  I mean, WTF!?

8 Honey–A Creepy little Bobby Goldsboro number about a dead girlfriend.  It is just weird.  He is singing so happily about how he avoided killing her through all the stupid shit she did, so that nature could take it’s course.

7 Billy Don’t Be A Hero–This one fell at the tale end of the “my lover died horribly” genre.  It was lame with a capitol B.  And had the most irritating last line of any song ever.  “I heard she threw the letter away”  OMG! How could she do that?  It should have been, I heard she used the letter in her parrots cage.  Or I heard she wiped her ass with the letter.  OR I heard she couldn’t take it anymore and hanged herself with the flag that came with it.

6 D.O.A.–The name of the band was Bloodrock.  The song came out sometime around 1970.  It received much airplay and was quite popular.  I am not making this up.  This song was literally the last dying thoughts of a man laying in an ambulance beside his dead girlfriend and describing the accident he just was in and the fact that his arm was ripped off in it.  Nuff said.

5 Angie Baby–I would love to say that when this slimy Helen Reddy hit came out it gave me nightmares.  But it didn’t.  In fact I bought it. I am ashamed and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

4 The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia–What were they thinking? How did this ever become a hit?  I probably bought this one too, but I am not proud of it.

3 Goodbye Earl–It’s a Dixie Chick song.  I noticed it mostly because Dennis Franze is in the video.  Once you get past that, the main concept of this song is that this woman’s husband is an asshole and she kills him and no one cares.  Pretty horrible I would say.  What kind of message are we sending to our youth?

2 Dark Lady–One of the first of Cher’s break-away hits.  It involves fortune telling and murder.  It is unclear what part of the lady is dark, but you can bet it must be a very spooky part.

1 I almost dare not type the title, but the number one scariest song ever to actually be played on American radio is (was) Elusive Butterfly by Bob Lynde!  There I said it and I feel better.  This song really did give me nightmares.  It is a shitload of metaphors that are supposed to be comparing love to an elusive butterfly (get it?).  But you tell that to a six year old who hears lines like:

You might wake up some mornin’
To the sound of something moving past your window in the wind
And if you’re quick enough to rise
You’ll catch a fleeting glimpse of someone’s fading shadow

Jesus Christ!  and it gets better…

You might have seen me runnin’
Through the long-abandoned ruins of the dreams you left behind
If you remember something there
That glided past you followed close by heavy breathin’

Mommy!  Mooooommm!!!! Make it stop!  Wish it into the cornfield.  Is it to early for me to start drinking? When I was six I had never heard of stalking, but I knew evil when I heard it on the radio.

And the ultimate scariest line ever (it really did give me nightmares)
Out on the new horizon
You may see the floating motion of a distant pair of wings

Yes, Billy!  It’s the angel of death coming to rip your terrified young  soul out through your asshole while you’re sleeping!  Goodnight.

Well that’s it for today Kids. Come back next time when I might actually be writing about comics.

PS-I did not see the squirrel today.  It may read my blog.

PPS-Which could explain my lack of comments, because squirrels do not leave comments. It’s a religious thing with them.  Yes.  I think it’s silly too, but don’t try to argue with one of the little gray zealots, or before you know it, you will find all your nuts gone and you’ll be covered in squirrel pee.