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Comics/Manga

Charlton Comics
Reptilicus No. 2, 1961

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I was surprised to find this comic book for Reptilicus, a really badly written and presented monster movie from AIP. When you think of marionette monsters, The Giant Claw, Reptilicus, and Viking Women and the Sea Serpent are stellar examples of bad special effects producing comic results. For Reptilicus, his diminutive arms are non-functional, so how he could actually move (beyond someone pulling his strings) is anyone's guess. But hey, for 10 cents, why not?

Comic reader version:  Download Reptilicus Comic Issue 2

Reptilicus Comic Issue 2

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Charlton Comics
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Charlton Comics
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Comic Book Review: Wolf Moon Issue 1
Of Wolf and Man

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Wolf-moon-1-coverZombos Says: Very Good

A carefully structured balance between Cullen Bunn’s narrative and Jeremy Haun’s art keeps this first issue of Wolf Moon moving quickly, yet packed with enough groundwork explanation to set the storyline’s future progression.

Dillon, a scarred man both literally and figuratively, is haunted by the werewolf and its victims, and is consumed by his need to kill the monster. He tracks the killing sprees, looking for his chance to finally end its terror.

Unlike traditional werewolf lore’s bitten-and-be-cursed dilemma, Bunn hints at a different method of transmission, something that may be more random in its selection process for each person who hosts the transformation into the werewolf, and then is left with vivid memories of what has happened.

Making the monster especially dangerous is its joy for killing (and disemboweling, dismembering, and demolishing) every human being within reach; a graphic propensity that Haun has no trouble depicting. A notable panel shows the gooey impact as a fleeing victim’s face is suddenly mashed up against a car window by the monster’s large, hairy arm.

Why does Dillon hesitate, causing him to miss his one opportunity to finally nail the monster? Who is Mason, the other hunter, who, along with Dillon, wants to stop the werewolf from killing again? And what is causing these transformations into this killing machine at every full moon? And what the hell is going on with that cover? Let’s hope the next issues answer these questions to our satisfaction as well as this first issue sets them up.

Comic Book Review: Wolf Moon Issue 1
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Comic Book Ads: Star Wars

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Wish I had kept all of my early Star Wars toys and action figures. Kick me now, please. I deserve it. In the 1980s I came across a comic book shop that had all the original boxed toys, sealed, for 5 dollars each. Grabbed all of them. Then later I came across a collector who had the first issue action figures, and I paid around 200 bucks for them. Of course today all of it is worth much more; but the memories are still priceless.

star wars comic book ad

star wars comic book ad

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Comic Book Review: American Vampire
Second Cycle, Issue 1

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Zombos Says: Very Good

Skinner Sweet, former hellion on horseback, is now hellion on wheels as he hunts down bad guys along the border. Pearl Jones, former aspiring actress, is now acting like a mother hen, gathering up orphaned vampire children. She lives in a comfy homestead, he lives in a train car buried in the desert. He also talks to a skeleton named Kitty. It’s been a long haul since Sweet stopped being so sour and turned nice, so he’s entitled to a few eccentricities.

Issue one of American Vampire, Second Cycle, starts off with a hint at dangerous things doing a lot of killing in the Mexican territory of Arizona in 1811, and leaves off with another hint that those things are still around in 1965, and have moved into the vicinity of Juarez. Pearl’s newly-found orphan, May, has a large bite mark not even Pearl has seen before. When asked about it, May says cryptically “The Gray Trader.” I hate prescient kids mouthing cryptic words. They’re creepy little bastards who know and don’t tell, but they’re quick to tell you you’re going to die, but don’t press for any more useful information because this is only the first issue.

I expect Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque to reveal more in the upcoming issues, but this first one ably delivers the mystery and the menace to set up the coming action, flowing them across great-looking panels and well-balanced talk versus silence. Snyder has a knack for concise writing that blends expositive and persuasive words easily with well-placed cussing, making his vampire lore a compelling mix between the classic Gothic overbite, a 30 Days of Night viciousness, and an American Gothic mood sweeping across his time-periods. Albuquerque captures it, embellishes it, and refines it. His art isn’t very detailed, but he energetically zooms in and out and creates a tense forward motion linking through every panel from first to last. He’s one artist who zings with the right colorist because he leaves room for its vibrancy and shadowing. Dave McCaig knows how to take advantage of that room.

DC Comics provided a courtesy copy for this review.

Comic Book Review: American Vampire
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Graphic Book Review: Five Ghosts
Volume One: The Haunting
Of Fabian Gray

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5-ghostsZombos Says: Very Good

Fabian Gray is a man possessed with both a mission and coterie of five ghosts: the wizard, the archer, the detective, the samurai, and the vampire. As you would imagine, this gives him a leg up–or ten legs up?–above and beyond his usual tenacious and resourceful self.

These wonderful reasoning and fighting abilities channeled through the ghosts were given to him by the Dreamstone, an ancient artifact–let's be polite and just say–he acquired . So what if Fabian Gray isn't all that clean and proper in his background? His ethics now seem to be on the up and up, so that counts.

But there are always complications when great power belongs to one man and others would have at it for themselves. Coming after it, and Fabian, are dark forces led by the devilish-looking Iago, a few big nasy spider-god things and their determined worshippers, and, as one character lays it out for him, "as with all things Mystical, there is a risk of danger."

But of course. Cue the drama. The Dreamstone itself is becoming a dangerous burden. Fabian needs to prove he's worthy to wield such power or it won't allow him to keep it. Isn't it annoying how that always winds up being the case?

Frank J. Barbiere's story is old-time movie serial paced (for you younger fans that means it's a lot like Indiana Jones in characterization and style), and the artwork is the Joe Kubert school of action and outline as energized by Chris Mooneyham. This team-up works hard and well to deliver the blow by blow encounters and the compact panels to build to a satisfying climax that leaves the door open for more rousing adventures.

And before I forget, there's the big eye-glasses wearing, steadfast but reluctant, why-do-I-continue-to-hang-out-with-you sidekick to provide contrast and levity throughout in key moments of terror. A dip in the purity pool for Fabian to fight old guilt demons rounds out his mysterious past, and a continuing thread to bring salvation to his sister promises there will be a mission within each mission goal to sustain the series.

Given all this, I'd say Fabian Gray easily has more than a ghost of a chance for adventuring onward.  

Graphic Book Review: Five Ghosts
Volume One: The Haunting
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Comic Book Review: The Wake 1

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06012013
Zombos Says: Good (but predictable so far)

DC Comics doesn't send me books to review on a regular basis, but I do enjoy receiving them when I do. Of late, I've a mind to not review a comic series until it has made its run: issue to issue can be spotty, but taken as a whole reading experience, a series can play out rather well. So I tend to wait until I've gotten through all the issues, single or in a collection, before forming a critical appraisal. But when I receive unsolicited issues for review I, of course, try to review them as soon as possible. One of two things usually happens: DC's trying to ramp up support for a memorable endeavor or they're trying to shore up as much support as possible for an iffy one.

The first issue of Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy's The Wake (a 10 issue series) isn't iffy. The art is full of well-angled scenes and interesting characters, although Murphy does have a fondness for straight lines and sharp noses and chins that's a little excessive; but his lively faces and movie-scene storyboarding stands out even more.

The story ends on a high note with a surprise revelation that eggs you on to pick up issue 2, but the usual shadows of Homeland Security Departments dabbling in secret undertakings, and a Dr. Archer who, with her soured past history, is reluctant to get involved when they need her expertise, keeps this issue at the let's-see-where-Snyder-takes-it stage. She is urgently needed because she specializes in cetological vocalizations and there is a recorded whale song that sounds suspicious–and which also reminds her of a catastrophe she hasn't quite gotten over yet–sparking Homeland Security's interest in getting her involved.

Other people Homeland Security has brought onboard for the investigation include Dr. Marlin, who's written  Legends of the Ocean–and what a coincidence, Dr. Archer has read it!–Meeks, the standard-plot-equipped anti-social type who has apparently crossed paths with Dr. Archer beforehand–not in a joyous way–and running the secret show, Agent Astor Cruz, who is, true to form, revealing those secrets only when needed.

Who do you think will die first?

The story proper starts 200 years earlier, our present time, give or take the Carnaby Street clothes and hairstyle of Dr. Marlin, and the first 4 pages tease us with the 200 years later aftermath. There's a 100,000 years ago teaser too, but that ties to the last page's thing revelation. Snyder has a lot going on so he has a lot of explaining to do. Hopefully he does it well in the next 9 issues.

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Comic Book Review: Dark Shadows Year One 1
Putting the Bite Back

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Dark shadows year oneZombos Says: Good

Dark Shadows, although it originally aired on network television beginning in the 1960s, still has a strong fan base and still remains a vibrantly brooding and evocative gothic tale of vampirism, witchcraft, and the supernatural realms. It's a love story, a ghost story, a werewolf story, a revenge story, and a story whose characters are damned or cursed or caught between the forces of both at any given moment.

At its heart is Angelique's unrequited love (or lust) for Barnabas Collins. This is the strongest element that comes through in Tim Burton's reimagining of the tale, and the only one worth our attention in his otherwise lame-o attempt at campy vampy self-indulgence–

–Which is why Dynamite's Dark Shadows Year One series is important. After the bad taste left by Burton's movie, and its sullying effect on newbies to this classic horror story, it's reassuring to see Dark Shadows reaffirmed as a serious entry in the gothic crawlspaces of terror.

And yes, the television series was bit of a campy hodgepodge, but that was due more to a low budget, little rehearsal time and no retakes, and a flair for the over-dramatic, rather than an intentional over the top scheming as seen in Adam West's Batman (which I still love, so don't snipe me on this).

Once you get past the annoying conceit of "Year One" used in comic book titles, and the gimmick of numerous first issue covers to boost sales while you (and me!) waste dollars buying each variant, Marc Andreyko and Guiu Vilanova pen and ink the background of Angelique's curse on Barnabas Collins and its deleterious effect on the Collins clan. Completing the effect is Josan Gonzalez's colors, giving the panels enough smoky lighting and dark spaces to bring us into the tight rooms of Collinwood and the gloomy climate of  Collinsport. Dialog is suitable enough to the age without being ponderous and the smaller panel arrangements provide the necessary emotional momentum, if perhaps a little too quickly paced.

Barnabas's indiscretion is also potentially revealing as to his character before becoming a vampire. Just how much does he really love Josette? How much influence did Angelique's witchcraft play into it? 

This first issue introduces Angelique's malevolence, but not precisely why she finds Barnabas so attractive. I'd like to see more of that in subsequent issues. What does she really want? is the question that drove the television series and will need to drive this series as well if it's to be successful at bringing us into the Dark Shadows ouevre; which appears never-ending, just like its fans.

Comic Book Review: Dark Shadows Year One 1
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Comic Book Review: The Colonized 1
A Tale of Zombies vs. Aliens

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Idw_the_colonizedZombos Says: Good

In the never ending wishing well creators keep dipping into to keep zombies fresh, IDW's Chris Ryall and Drew Moss manage to get aliens mixed up with animated corpses in The Colonized. The aliens bring one up to their ship but never get the chance to go through their carefully rehearsed formal "greetings earthling" introduction because the dead guy wants to eat them instead of greet them. So much for superior technology in the face of adversity: the aliens have stun rods, but no cool disintegration rayguns. Bummer.

Ryall and Moss are going for a 1950s kind of alien sensibility, even if the local town being visited is going green, which seems to be annoying the local Cabela's shoppers, and the dead are rising faster than the aliens can say "take me to your leader."

The artwork is a perfect match for both the tone and mood of the storyline in issue 1: the zombies are decayed enough, but not too gooey serious, and the aliens act more like chimps dressed in spacesuits rather than predator warriors. The fishbowl helmets they wear aren't very good protection for them, especially when they trip over their own feet. Or whatever they call the things they have stuffed in their boots that work like feet.

No reason–yet–is given for the dead rising, and it appears the aliens didn't have a plan 9 for visiting earth. They're just a bunch of shlubs, like some of the locals, caught up in the moment.  I'm not sure where it will go from here, but I hope the IDW team can keep the momentum going, or this could wind up being another Cowboys and Aliens.

(Note to Ryall and Moss: Come on guys, let's see some rayguns!)

Comic Book Review: The Colonized 1
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