A lumbering accident prone monster wants to be a helpful gentleman, but always seems to end up inadvertently slaughtering everyone around him. PerhapsA lumbering accident prone monster wants to be a helpful gentleman, but always seems to end up inadvertently slaughtering everyone around him. Perhaps it’s just his nature, destined to grow up and decimate cities. He’s not made for the human world, but for its destruction, despite his efforts to fit in. Eventually, his adversarial instincts take over, and his crazed genetics want blood. His friends wind up eviscerated, decapitated, or barbecued, often screaming ‘my eyes!� as Booyah spills scalding hot chocolate or impales them on birthday candles for a prank.
Nothing in the way of an origin, the green scourge wanders from place to place wreaking havoc without intention.
The cartoonish gore is fun. The bewildered mania of his accidental victims as their world erupts in chaos makes for viable amusement. As its sole purpose, it plays itself out over a few stories before overplaying its edgy gimmick....more
With only seven issues spanning thirteen years of print and publication, Cemetery Dance’s Grave Tales can’t be said to have been a short-lived seriesWith only seven issues spanning thirteen years of print and publication, Cemetery Dance’s Grave Tales can’t be said to have been a short-lived series, but the time and money afforded the artists probably made it difficult to bring these short story adaptations to life in a timely—or regular—fashion. No slouches on this project, cranking out weekly crap.
Inspired by the EC horror comics of old, this inaugural installment has original and adapted stories by Rick Hautala (illustrated by Cemetery Dance mainstay Uber-detailer Glenn Chadbourne), Edward Lee, and Richard Layman, along with some lesser-knowns.
The cover is deceptive in that none of these are Halloween stories, but it was nonetheless a great trio of morbidity and gore.
In the first tale, Late Summer Shadows , Hautala does what he does best, reminiscing on a whimsical woodland adventure turned grim and deadly, the past returning to cease the present, as told by a future survivor.
Next is an oddly religious story by Gene Michael Higney, adapted by purveyor of perversity, Edward Lee. Comes the Night Wind, Cold and Hungry is the goriest course, with a terrific paneled montage of a demonic killer clown’s exploits.
For dessert, so nearly a Halloween story; Richard Laymon’s Stickman could’ve been, should’ve been. Why not? A defiling serial killer returns from the dead to exact corrupt vengeance for his comeuppance at vigilante hands and rope. A quick, mean conclusion to the anthology in which justice does not ultimately prevail.
I’d love to see a new issue appear, but after a decade-long hiatus, it probably just wasn’t profitable enough....more
I wouldn’t dare suggest that some of you wonderful weirdos don’t luv Halloween as much as I do, but I can confidently declare that you’d be hard-pressI wouldn’t dare suggest that some of you wonderful weirdos don’t luv Halloween as much as I do, but I can confidently declare that you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who luvs it more than I do. I don’t merely celebrate. I, as much as I can manage for the entire month of October, observe Halloween like a devout Catholic observes Lent, or a devout Muslim observes Ramadan. I would not take offense to being labeled a Halloween zealot, or fundamentalist. I want the spirit of the season incorporated into everything I do for those 31 sacred days. I don’t expect anyone in my life to go along with it, just that they respect it.
Anyway, that covers the title of this mid-2000’s manga guignol, and is it ever the epitome of turn-of-the-century, edgy goth energy. Manga in categorization, ostensibly, but it has far more in common with the graphic novels of Jhonen Vasquez, both in art style and content.
It is a filthy, non-sequiter, nightmare world that fifteen-year-old me would have been obsessed with had I discovered it at Hot Topic. Corrupt, psychopathic children wander a hellscape inversion of our world, brutalizing anyone who interferes with their candy quest. It is commonplace, and our trick-or-treating troupe couldn’t be more nonchalant about all the havoc.
Finch and his demonic tooth fairy sister Moochie (introduced by way of wrenching a molar from her rotting father’s mouth as his rotting wife sits across from him at the dinner table), sets in motion this demented Devil’s Night. Finch and his degenerate friends (none of whom we ever see out of costume) receive apples at their first house. This does not bode well for their endeavor, and so disproportionately malicious measures must be taken in response.
From then on, a rampage of revenge and perversion ensues. (Hellbent on seeing his voluptuous neighbor’s boobs, one friend’s head literally explodes when—after said neighbor chases the hellions down to regain her massive discarded bra which Moochie subsequently repurposed for a slingshot used to Goliath a bully through the eye socket—she flashes the child in order to, I don’t know, spite him?
A bedridden old woman is disemboweled, a police officer bites into a razor-riddled apple, a dimwitted bully has his teeth crudely extracted, a candy-hander-outer is savaged by a deformed dog, and a random little girl is wearing a Glassjaw Sux shirt as part of her costume.
If I weren’t so familiar with this trend of random chaos in the days when Nickelodeon greenlit a show like Invader Zim, I’d think I had a psychotic episode and this series didn’t even really exist....more
“A pinch of your brother, a teaspoon of you, With the head of your sister, would make a good stew. I’d give you a taste, but your tongue’s in the stew.“A pinch of your brother, a teaspoon of you, With the head of your sister, would make a good stew. I’d give you a taste, but your tongue’s in the stew. Irony! That’s what Halloween means to me.� —Stephen Lynch,
When it comes to flash fiction, or ‘bite-sized horror,� as the case may be, I struggle with how to read a collection. I’m not much for dipping in and out. I’m a straight-through, cover to cover kind of guy, but flash fiction often feels like ripping the engine cord without turning the clutch. rev-rev-rev-rev done. You don’t get that satisfying sensation as it sputters to life, and there is no journey to follow. They are quite literally over before they begin.
Naturally, these bite-sized pieces range from gruesomely amusing and ironically twisted to ‘Huh? Did I miss something?� Some of them are real head-scratchers, prompting a once-again-over. Maybe if I read it with the cadence of a joke, or a poem, it’ll click. Nope? Time to move on. Can’t cry wasted time because it requires almost no time to consume.
I like the frenetic energy of the peculiar project. There are interludes of parodic advertisements, art collages, and self-aware warnings. You’re going to get dead animals, imperiled children, depravity and delight in disregard for human life, but it’s all in good Halloween fun!
You’ll encounter an array of beasties and butchers and plenty of creative concepts. You’ll be riffed on for your basic bitch love of pumpkin spice, hard cider, and candy-corny decorations. With the exception of the professionally offended, and there are some eye-rolling moments, you should find something to sate your sickly sweet tooth, even if some of the treats are spit out and instantly forgotten....more
“And I’m a teen distortion, Survived abortion, A rebel from the waist down.�
I’m not sure I have much on this one, excep“And I’m a teen distortion, Survived abortion, A rebel from the waist down.�
I’m not sure I have much on this one, except to say that it’s confounding and remarkable just how much attention it has received. Woom currently stands with over 26,000 ratings on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. When I first ventured into the twisted realm of Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror, most publications in these sub-genres were lucky to break a hundred ratings.
(Splatterpunk dates back to the early �80’s, even before I was born. It makes one wonder, if the nauseating ‘excesses� of the early Splatterpunk authors drew the ire of classic horror authors like Robert Bloch and Charles L. Grant, what do more ‘conventional� horror authors think about the utterly repulsive nature of modern Extreme Horror? I’m sure there’s a debate raging somewhere, but I’ve removed myself from almost every forum that would leave me privy to such discourse. Furthermore, critic Philip Nutman defended Splatterpunk as a form of art that “reflects the moral chaos of our times.� If that was true, and I’m inclined to agree, what does it say with respect to our current times and the art it aids--or is complicit--in producing?)
On to Ralston’s novel proper; I was not riveted throughout. The stories within the story, a la Chuck Palahniuk’s much reviled Haunted (which, despite being a popular author, deigned to publish something I would be pleased to consider an extreme horror classic), felt like disjointed, oh-so-edgy excuses to indulge in the purveying shock the author wished to inflict. However, it came together satisfactorily, if not particularly ingenuously.
There are two elements that I unequivocally loved:
1. The double entendre of the title that is brilliantly realized in light of Angel’s speech impediment. It is thematically on point and clever without being pretentious (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
2. The notion of a place being haunted without any appeal to the supernatural. Places hold memories—even if only manifested in flights of fancy—but if there is personal history, one can feel tethered to a setting of significance, whether gleefully nostalgic or corruptingly traumatic, and one can feel inexplicably and spiritually compelled to return to make an attempt at closure and resolution, a futile attempt to recapture a moment long past , or even to start over, in literal conception.
As the novel began and progressed, I was skeptical of the Extreme Horror label—not that any work of art must justify itself with a label—as it was certainly sexually explicit, scatological, and depraved, but not extremely horrifying. It came off trivially exploitative—again, no issues with that—and therefore a bit boring. This perspective did not endure throughout. To my surprise and delight, it turned out to be rather grounded and sad, and while perverse in its content and characters, not flippant or outrageous in its presentation. I would by no means call it tasteful, but the thematic significance renders some of the hitherto perceived over-indulgences less obnoxious.
Would you look at that? If you’ll recall (or scroll up a bit), I began this review with the lackluster suggestion that I hadn’t much to say. While far from exhaustively thought provoking, this novella got me thinking and writing, not only about the story itself, but about the history and controversy of the genre of artistic expression I’ve adored since childhood, with all its subtleties and explicit, sleazy excesses. For this reason, I’m boosting it one star.
Congratulations to me for talking myself into appreciating something more than I did initially after finishing it....more
Remember when The House of Wax remake came out at the tail end of the Teen Beat meets Elm Street slasher revival?“What’s your deal with Paris Hilton?�
Remember when The House of Wax remake came out at the tail end of the Teen Beat meets Elm Street slasher revival? Probably not. Well, the marketing campaign relied heavily on bringing people to the theater to “See Paris Die.� For reasons that are not terribly mysterious, people had a violent aversion to P. Hilt’s perceived vapidity and privileged promiscuity.
Numerous depictions of her gruesome demise have appeared in media, including being burned alive—as if in effigy—on Celebrity Deathmatch by none other than her The Simple Life costar, Nicole Richie, being used as a full-bodied rectal suppository in South Park , and then literally being face-penetrated by a pipe in the aforementioned House of Wax. (The difference being that she was involved with that movie).
And then we have this. To the best of my knowledge, Paris Hilton did not give her blessing to be brutally eviscerated and decapitated in a small press splatterpunk micro story, but that would be cool. (She seems to have taken all that in stride). There is nothing else to the story, but it delivers in excess on the title and succeeds as gory absurdity. Without that and a hint at the hypocrisy of the mutilator of Paris Hilton, it may have come across as an alarmingly mean-spirited fantasy, but wearing a horned furry costume for the abduction and demanding that his accomplice refer to him by the code name ‘Demon Dog?� That was a clever way to include some necessary levity to what might otherwise come across as an unhinged threat.
There are two additional stories in this slim volume. The first is a mummy in a punk band. It was almost wholesome in its random conceit and in contrast with the vileness of the subsequent entries.
My favorite of the three is the middle story, Snailwart. It is a repulsive, goopy nightmare of a fun time in good company with the Troma team, or prestigious ‘melt movies� like Street Trash.
A restaurant worker develops grotesque pustules on his hands, hilariously failing to conceal them from his bewildered and disgusted team members. He inadvertently infects the food, with deliquescing results: “Like a melted crayon writing on paper, his face rubbed off on my dirty blue work shirt.�
This trio was short, sickly sweet, and satisfying. I’ll be reading more perversions from M.P....more
This story was like a twenty minute, high-intensity workout. It’s brief, grueling, and damn do you feel it when you’re finished.
Good ol� Joe puts storThis story was like a twenty minute, high-intensity workout. It’s brief, grueling, and damn do you feel it when you’re finished.
Good ol� Joe puts story first—and this is one bizarre story. He isn’t preachy or didactic. As more and more modern literature of all genres creeps in that direction, it becomes all the more retroactively refreshing to read stories that are just cool stories. Not patronizing or pandering. Not reactionary. No requirements for a ‘likeable� protagonist, or a ‘subversion/deconstruction� of tropes. No overt, condescending political message. Just unadulterated, unhinged creativity and gorgeous, bloody prose.
Paul Marder (which may be an antonym of martyr) was a scientist partially responsible for the destruction of earth and the death of his own daughter. His wife, an artist who now despises him, gouged a tattoo/scarification of their late daughter’s image engulfed in a mushroom cloud onto his back which bleeds from the eyes after strenuous movement.
He monotonously documents his misery and the horrific events happening around him in his journal. He is a dead man in all but the flesh.
Moaning, black-brained, human hunting, organ-supplanting plants inherit the earth as Paul has pseudo-incestuous, guilt-ridden dreams about his daughter.
For such a short story, the world is so much better realized than a lot of post-apocalyptic, dystopian epics I’ve tried slogging through. It presages Scott Smith’s The Ruins and is a wondrously distressing Freudian fever dream....more
I had much higher hopes for my favorite rebel buddy rival duo in comics. I would have preferred a more personal story focused on the complicated frienI had much higher hopes for my favorite rebel buddy rival duo in comics. I would have preferred a more personal story focused on the complicated friendship between Casey Jones and Raphael as they resort to more aggressive means in their crime-fighting.
Instead, their involvement is incidental. A brother-sister mafia drama takes precedence and the cover characters I was here for barely shine through. A gory John Woo gunfight ensues for the entirety, and their are some badass, batshit pages—Casey donning a new stars-and-stripes hockey mask is a highlight—but ultimately what results is a lot of cheesy dialogue and no development between them. I wish the proceedings were at least in the service of a more essential chronicle for the iconic vigilantes.
After Kevin Eastman’s unprecedented success co-creating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , he eventually became editor of Heavy Metal, and that influence shows here, as does a sense of styles colliding—rather than seamlessly merging—of two artists and creators, which enhanced the mayhem transpiring on every page.
Woefully little required Jones and Raph to be involved at all—at least that justified it being these specific characters (which is a bummer for a TMNT nerd like me). I liked seeing them together, getting more extreme and taking out bad guys, but this wasn’t the team up they deserved....more
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