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.