Connect with us

Comics

Bloodshot Makes A Valiant Return In July

Published

on

What’s the most exciting event in comics this summer? The return of Valiant Comics. In the ’90s when most companies were more concerned with gimmicks and trends, Valiant consistently put out books with strong writing and artwork month in and month out. The company is finally set to return this summer and our inner fanboy couldn’t be happier.

Bloodshot One of Valiant’s flagship titles, Bloodshot, is set to re-launch in July 2012 with writer Duane Swierczynski and art by Arturo Lozzi and Manuel Garcia. Bloodshot is the tale of a man brought back to life through technology to become the ultimate killing machine. They have also announced at the beginning of March that Bloodshot has been picked up by Columbia Pictures for a film adaptation.

Bloodshot 2

USA Today had the following information about Bloodshot:

Swierczynski hates to say something horribly pretentious about Bloodshot like “This is one’s man violent and dangerous quest for his own identity …,” but that’s pretty much what the book is: “Bloodshot has no frickin’ idea who he is.”

The ultimate killing machine full of dirty secrets in his mind and nanites in his body to help him heal and control electronics, Bloodshot has many, many memories, of being a guy named Angelo Mortalli and also of being a guy named Ray Garrison. He’s going to want to figure out who he really is, whether he’s a living weapon whose soul is burning away, or if there’s a man still under there looking for answers and redemption.

Plus, “nanomachine technology has come a long way in the 20 years since Bloodshot first appeared,” the writer reports. (Bloodshot is also headed for the big screen —Columbia Pictures announced March 1 that it was closing on a deal to adapt the comic into a movie produced by Neal H. Moritz.)

Swierczynski admits that he missed the original Bloodshot series from the 1990s but had a meeting with Simons last July at Comic-Con in San Diego, where they dug around the character’s history to see what made him tick.

“He’s my favorite kind of noir hero: tortured yet determined to do the right thing, no matter what kind of horrible things he may — or may not — have done in the past,” Swierczynski says.

“Warren would’ve had to put a bullet in my head to get me to back off.”

Comics

[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

Published

on

Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

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.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

Continue Reading