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Various Artists – Cemetery Plots #1
Cemetery Plots #1
I assume there will be some point in the future where I get sick of the concept of horror anthologies in the vein of Tales From The Crypt, but that day certainly hasn’t arrived yet. This one has about half a dozen horror stories, some better than others, as this is an anthology, after all. First up (by Rob Gant) is a zombie story called “Chomp”with a twist: we see it from the perspective of the zombie as he turns. He retains his mind, at least for a little while, but is utterly unable to communicate with anybody. Next is “Head Games” by Dan Johnson and Gary O’Donnell, which is told from the perspective of a severed head in a jar. He shares a mental link with the few other heads in the vicinity and has a front row seat to a mad doctor conducting different kinds of experiments. “Three Way” by Dan Johnson and Steve Casper is next, and while that title is literally true, there is naturally a twist on it, which I can’t exactly give away here. Search your memories for TFTC stories and you might guess it! Next is a werewolf story, which seems to be in short supply these days, called “The Unfaithful” (by Alexter Albury and Gary O’Donnell). It takes a few pages before I fully understood what was happening, but I can tell you that if you love werewolf mayhem then you’re bound to enjoy this one. “Rest in Pieces” (by Dan Johnson and Eric Bowen) was the shortest and simplest story of the bunch, dealing with a man trying to raise the dead and the fairly obvious problems with making that attempt. Finally there’s a single page strip called “Dr. Frank and Higgins” (by Robert Watson and Rob Gant) that helps end the book on a funny note. I thoroughly enjoyed the crossover bits with D.O. Mann (their answer to the Crypt Keeper) and his terrible puns, but your mileage may vary on that. Again, if you enjoyed TFTC then I can’t see how those puns would bother you. So overall this is a fairly solid collection of horror stories, and frankly the world always needs more of these comics. And all for a measly $3!
Gant, Rob – Blue Collar Invasion #1
Blue Collar Invasion #1
There’s a really great premise for a comic series set up in this first issue. The “Galactic Community” sees the progress Earth is making towards reaching distant stars and decides to set up a base on the moon, minimally staffed, to make sure we don’t spread our war-mongering and resource-devouring behinds into outer space. As time goes by, with nothing but tv to keep them entertained, these aliens eventually get to like Earth culture. This was all said in a recap that was filled with all sorts of typos and grammatical errors at the start of the book, which continues to bug the hell out me, so I’ll continue to mention it when I see it. If you can get past that, this is more of a preview than an actual issue. The aliens nab a pizza delivery guy (for the pizza), decide who’s going to get stuck giving him the probe and play video games. It’s broken down into one page segments, although to me it would be better served as more of a continuous chunk, but I’m just some guy with a website. Once you get past the grammatical and spelling errors that possibly only bother me anyway, the art is gorgeous. Rob has obviously put some time into designing these aliens (he includes some sketchbook pages in the back) and there are some imaginative and creepy things on the horizon, even if this issue only had the three mostly plain aliens. I’m very curious to see more, although I wish he would have somebody read over the dialogue before putting out #2. The possibilities here are endless if he sticks with this concept…
