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A New Jason Looks To Slay Horror Fans In New Jason Dark E-Series!

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With the lament of the digital age in full effect it is unsurprising that the normal ink on paper approach to novels is also starting to fall to the more convenient “e-book” format. Today we received a press release for what looks to be the first huge horror title for the format titled “Jason Dark: Ghost Hunter”. Read on for the full skinny on this exciting and groundbreaking title from Thunder Peak Publishing!

“Thunder Peak Publishing, a division of international content developer G3 Studios, today announces a new face in the horror genre with the launch of “Jason Dark: Ghost Hunter©” character. Jason Dark, a fearless and resourceful ghost hunter, follows in the mold of Sherlock Holmes combined with Randall Garrett’s Lord D’Arcy. Written by Guido Henkel, the designer who brought Germany’s famed Das Schwarze Auge series to computer screens, this action-packed thrilling series is filled with enough mystery, drama and suspenseful action to transport you to the sinister, fog-shrouded streets of Victorian England.

“I’ve always been a fan of the classic horror films from Universal Studios and Hammer Films,” said Henkel. “I wanted Jason Dark to hearken back to those elegant thrillers, but also speak to our hi-tech generation, not only with his adventures but how fans can access them.”

Where the fog shrouds the streets of Victorian England, where the once ordinary becomes obscure, where evil causes the rational to dance on the precipice of anarchy… comes the “Geisterjäger.” Descended from an ancestral line of ghost hunters, Jason Dark is the Geisterjäger of his generation. Risking his own life, sanity, and soul, Dark faces all manner of terrors – vampires, were-creatures, demons, sometimes even the Devil himself – frequently standing as the sole gatekeeper between civilization and supernatural chaos!
The first adventure in the Jason Dark: Ghost Hunter series is entitled “Demon’s Night” and is available now. The story will be accessible for reading on internet browsers, including Microsoft Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, in your browser for free from the Jason Dark website, on this site, although alternative versions will be available also at a nominal cost. These will include versions for the Amazon Kindle and other mobile eReaders and devices, including cell phones, as well as a print version.
In “Demon’s Night,” a series of bizarre deaths leaves the victims unnaturally desiccated and decaying, sending Jason Dark into the dangerous world of the London dockyards in search of a supernatural murderer. But is the paranormal investigator prepared to duel a full-fledged demon on a Hell-bent mission to create chaos and catastrophe throughout the earth, a fiend determined to wreak more death and destruction than his even more ominous Master?

Subsequent adventures include Jason Dark #2 “Theater of Vampires,” where Jason Dark turns to an old friend for help when stage magic isn’t what it seems. Explore the shadows of the Victorian Theater with London’s most famous “Geisterjäger” as he confronts a horror beyond anything yet confronted. “Theater of Vampires” is a story of betrayal, discovery, and horror in the tradition of the Grand Guignol. The only admission price needed is your courage.

Your encounter with the extraordinary awaits! For more information about Jason Dark and his adventures, check out www.jasondarkseries.com.”

As a writer myself I’m not yet sure how to feel about the “e-book” phenomena, but I do know that this sounds like an intriguing series. If it’s anything like the recent “Victorian Undead” series, then it will definitely be worth a read.

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

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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

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