Comics
‘Re-Animator: The Eternal Lie’: New Comic from Cullen Bunn Connects Herbert West to Cthulhu Mythos!
Successfully funded on Indiegogo in a matter of hours, Dynamite and Cullen Bunn (Pumpkinhead) present Re-Animator: The Eternal Lie, a prestige comic soon on the way.
The comic from Cullen Bunn and artist Blacky Shepherd connects the maniacal Herbert West from Re-Animator to the wider Cthulhu mythology of H.P. Lovecraft!
The story serves as a direct sequel to Lovecraft’s original Reanimator short story.
“Though he’s presumed dead at the end of Lovecraft’s original tale, nothing can keep the mad scientist Herbert West down. He’s back and with his reanimation serum stolen, he must travel to the infamous town of Innsmouth, home to degenerate townsfolk and dark gods alike. This story is full of monsters, scares, and surprises for both longtime Lovecraft disciples and new readers. It will kill off all expectations for what readers think they know about Herbert West, only to reanimate them with something new and terrifying.”
“There have been so many incarnations of Herbert West, but we’ve been given the opportunity to take the character back to formula, if you’ll pardon the pun,” said Cullen Bunn. “This story finds West in the 1920s, not long after the conclusion of the original short story. From there, we were able to go in some sinister new directions I think readers will love.”
Artist Blacky Shepherd added, “As a lifelong fan of the visceral horror that you get with Reanimator, and the cosmic dread of the rest of the Lovecraft mythos, the chance to stitch the two together, as written by one of the Modern Masters of the Macabre was too exciting. This story gives me everything I love in a horror story and dials it up to 13!”
“Fans can get this 48-page prestige format title with their choice of three cardstock covers. Two are by Shepherd, with one featuring Vampirella and Lady Demon. Comics horror icon Francesco Francavilla is tapped for another, and his is available as a high-quality print. A special combo package is the only way to get a fourth cover by Shepherd, and at an incredible price. Dynamite is also making available CGC graded copies of the comic.”
“Add-ons and special items that will be exclusively offered on the Indiegogo include a genius custom reanimation formula syringe-looking pen. Perfect for writing your own spooky stories. An exclusive 1.5 inch enamel pin featuring that iconic neon fluid-filled syringe is also available. Plus signatures, sketch covers, and remarks from Blacky, sketch artist Joe DelBeato, or even Cullen himself – is he secretly an artistic prodigy? Fans can add graphic novels to their haul featuring Dynamite’s previous tales of the Reanimator, including his last self-titled miniseries and the aforementioned last collaboration of Cullen and Blacky featuring Vampirella and a unique black, white, blood, and yellow serum color palette.”
“The book has been completely written, penciled, and inked, and is in the process of being colored and lettered now. With the help of fans, Dynamite will be able to bring this project to their collections. And with enough support, perhaps there could be more stories to come? As you can never count Herbert West out and down for the count, when he’s got that formula.”
Head over to Indiegogo to learn more and pre-order the comic today!
Comics
[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream
Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.
“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”
Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.
Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.
Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.
Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.
Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.
Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.
Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.
Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion.
Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.
‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.
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