Welcome to another edition of Quick Hits. This week will be a little different since most of the books aren't really from this week... but hey whatever right? You probably still haven't read some of the books I have so on with the review.
Hack/Slash #4 (On-going) - I wish I had the time to review issues 2 and 3, but instead I've reviewed issue 1 and now 4. Issue 4 marked the end of the first story arc of the ongoing series. Unfortunately I didn't really like the issue. There was some great stuff with Vlad, but the sense of danger that the first and second issue had was lost on the last two. They spent so much time getting to the ending that by the time they got there, they ran out of pages to tell a well crafted ending. This Demon that's going to impregnate Cassie and this other girl, ends up just looking like a purplely gross tentacle that gets it's ass kicked pretty easily for a Demon. The appearance of Elvis was again humorous but also short lived. He and Sixx both had pretty lame endings to their lives, with Elvis taking one of the impregnating tentacles in the butt and blowing up and Sixx having to play his gig from the first issue over and over again in a personal hell... pretty boring actually.
The Whore, whose name slips my mind, becomes a dominate character all through the fourth issue and will pretty much wear on your nerves. Also I guess Cassie is lesbian, which kinda sucks since she's a strong sexy female and I'm sure most guys read the book because they thought she was hot and would get with her if she was real and now if she was she would be gay so it doesn't really matter. Yeah who cares right? I don't really I just think it's dumb when a character's sexuality is brought up in a comic that has no place for it. In typical Hack/Slash fashion, the next Slasher is introduced and will hopefully be a more successful outing. Here's some previews of this issue before we move on to the next.
Bump #3 (of 4) - If you're a horror fan and you haven't been reading Bump, then you are missing out on one of the best horror books written to date. The overall story line is nothing new of course, but they "monsters" in it, and the way characters handle situations, is. Basically this sick bastard kidnaps a woman and cuts out their no-no's and locks them into these female bodies made of wood. Well the Sheriff and his deputy put a stop to it one day and leave the bastard to bleed to death and board up his house and pretty much go on each and everyday trying to live with what they did and pretending their best it didn't happen. Problem is the bastards back and he's up to his old tricks. His Mom helps him in his captures and what not, and some scenes have a strong influence of House of a 1,000 corpses, but you know what? It works! If you're a fan of horror in any shape or form, you'll be able to pick out the writers influences very easily, but that's what really makes the book great. It's taking all this cool ideas, meshing them together and not making it suck. I've been able to find every issue on line, and the first issue sold pretty well at the shops that carried it so you might find it in the back issues at a local shop. There's only one issue left of the series, but already there's a cross-over in the works with... you guessed it Hack/Slash! I'm actually really looking forward to that, and seeing what happens with it. Check out Fangoria's site as well!
Killing Girl #1 (of 5) - Let me sum this book up for you real quick. Girl gets kidnapped as a child. She losses her memory or just can't remember, Russian Mafia forces her into prostitution, kills a client, becomes their star assassin, runs into a man who thinks she's his wife, oops my mistake you're not, calls his wife and she tells him about the kidnapping, blah, blah, blah, the kid sister is about to kill the husband but he calls her by her real name. Well everything else in the story makes since except for the husband really just picking up on things way to quick. He's got a gun to his head and he just randomly tries calling her by the name that in all actuality, he never learns? Yeah I don't think so. Art's pretty good, but not strong enough to save the weak story.
The Chemist #1 - Sometimes it's hard to plop down $3.50 for an Image book. For starters you can never be certain that you'll see the next issue, or most of the time, issue 5. Also the story and or art may not be worth the 3.50 that they're asking. At the end of this book you'll ask yourself one question... "Who the hell is Jay Boose? And then, "why isn't he doing more comics?" Well the answer to the second one is because he is the writer, artist, colorist and editor of this book leaving him no time to do other great comics. The story starts off with the guy on the cover meeting a woman in a bar. He is selling pills, but what they are is unclear at the time. Things go bad and the people that hired him want him out of the picture. The woman that was working for the people trying to kill our guy ends up joining him and coming back to his house while they stay low. I'm pretty sure that she's going to try and kill him, which will end up with her having a change of heart, but pretty much I'm suspicious of her and I'm not willing to trust her 100% yet. That's pretty much the gist of the story. What I like about this character is that he's not a drug-dealer. He is an independent "Chemist" that reverse engineers medicine, to make it cheaper for those who can't afford it. Over all I really liked the story and the art was fantastic, making it a worthy buy after all. I liked it so much you get some free preview pages! Enjoy and more than likely they'll be another comic review or Quick Hit coming soon!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Comic Quick Hits - Another Dose
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Hack/Slash - From Devil's Due Press
Hack / Slash Ongoing Series - Issue 01
Written By: Tim Seeley
Art By: Emily Stone
Colors By: Courtney Via
Published By: Devil's Due Press
Released Date: 05-09-07
After several Mini-Series and One Shots, some expensive some affordable, we finally have an Ongoing Hack/Slash series. If you're not familiar with the world of Hack/Slash this issue does a fantastic job of getting you caught up without making it a boring origin story. In fact it was quite brilliantly put together, diving into the deeper psychology of the Main Character Cassandra Hack and in doing so making her flashback to the events in her life that make up her origin. Perhaps the same will be done again for our other Main character Vlad who had a One Shot I believe already dedicated to his origin.
So the premise of the Series is this: Cassandra and Vlad hunt Slashers. Slashers are Boogey-men, Serial Killers, all those Characters from Horror Movie Slashers, i.e. Freddy, Jason, Micheal Meyers, but instead of the story following the Slasher we're following the people that kill the them. Yeah that's right, there's no Arkham Asylum to send these nut-jobs to so death typically is the best answer. Typically they read a newspaper story or hear a news report and they head out to find the Slasher.
For the first issue, Cassandra uses herself as bait and gets captured by a Psychology Professor turned way evil. He's peeled off his skin to reveal a more 'Truer' self underneath and is more than likely going to do the same to Casandra. Being the interesting character that he is he wants to know what type of person seeks out a Slasher, making it oh so easy to psychoanalyze the captured Cassandra. Note he's cutting off her toes while he does this. The story does great on it's own so I'm not going to spout off all the intense, comedic or heartfelt moments of the story, I'd rather you read it and find them all for yourself.
I'd say the thing I like most about this book is that the Main Characters are human, there's the chance they'll die, or lose a limb, Casandra's toes won't grow back by the next issue they're gone for good. They don't have any money and live off of donations from family's they've helped or what the Slasher have on them. Sorta like Blade attempts to do but if you add up everything he spends and compares it to what he could potentially make you'd find he's living outside his means.
Overall I'd actually give this book a 9.0, it was the best Hack/Slash I've read thus far and has potential of being a good Ongoing Series. The art fit the story telling, the cover art is great too but don't be fooled it's not the same inside. Hopefully they won't fall victim to printing five covers a book to try and make a buck and focus on good story telling and having a consistent artist on the book. Ask for it at your local shop. Check out the write up for issue 2 on DDP's Site.
Here's a few pages of the book for you to check out!