Dark Horse

By Rob Base

Since the advent of Comics there have always been Monsters. Up till recent memory Nothing had been as cool and as dark as the books from EC comics (thanks in part to real life monster Dr Fredrick Wertham).

With the advent of the “comics code” the years following would see the monsters that had shaped the fears in the backs of comic book readers minds taken on a new role as anti-hero or misguided souls or even worse glittery puffy love crap! The worst example is the vampire who becomes a wimpy feeling emo kid. our beings from beneath the bed have been reduced to the comical role.

Monsters have become the butt of jokes!

Yet with the amazing talent of comic pioneers like Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and even Mike Mignola’s Hellboy monsters have regained their honor and become fully fledged Icons.

Criminal Macabre is a one shot that lives up to the aforementioned titles.Here is the breakdown of the comic as detailed by Dark Horse: Cal McDonald and his army of ghouls are pitted in an epic battle against the terrifying female vampire Salem, who has a deep personal connection to Cal, and her horde of monsters. With little hope of victory for either side, Cal must make his final stand to take Salem back to hell!

The art is streamlined and fresh and the dialogue lives up to the challenge.At times it flows as if you are reading a script based off any classic Tarantino film.The first three pages that were sampled to us show great promise and seem like a title that could contend against books like the Goon and Hellboy! Dark Horse seems to have a possible runaway hit with this title. The only drawback,it being a one shot comic!

Let’s hope the book does well and we can get a follow up regular ongoing series in the near future!