Connect with us

Comics

Review: ‘Hoax Hunters’ #7

Published

on

Hoax Hunters #7 picks things up quickly and presents readers with a promising mystery worth solving. With a new story arc, this is the perfect time to jump in on the “Hoax Hunters” series. If you are a fan of horror and paranormal stuff, this series is definitely for you.

WRITTEN BY: Michael Moreci and Steve Seeley
ART BY: Axel Medellin
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: February 13, 2013

At Reality Con, the Hoax Hunters, a group of paranormal debunkers, were challenged in public by the Hoax Hunters Hunters. While their every move is being recorded by the Hoax Hunters Hunters, the Hoax Hunters must disprove the legend of the Haunchyville gnomes. The truth is that the Hoax Hunters are real paranormal investigators trying to stop the spread of the supernatural. With one of their members missing, the Hoax Hunters must stop the Albino King before the merciless killing machine strikes again. If they survive the ordeal, they might have a chance to prove the flesh-eating gnomes do not actually exist.

The writers, Michael Moreci and Steve Seeley, do a great job providing back-story to one of their protagonists, while crafting a suspenseful thriller. In the opening pages, Moreci and Seeley let the readers sink into Ken Cadaver’s mind as he is being mentally tortured. The Albino King is reading into Ken’s mind, breaking through his barriers, and seeing what makes him tick as a corpse. While Ken is in tremendous pain, he is also reliving parts of his past, memories he tried so hard to block. In order to truly hurt him, The Albino King is manipulating Ken’s heartbroken memories of a true love lost.

The Hoax Hunters Hunters are an interesting group because they are a bunch of normal people thrown into an extraordinary situation. At first, the team thought they were trying to prove the Hoax Hunters were a sham. The Hoax Hunters Hunters had no idea that the Haunchyville legend was real and that they were walking into a deadly trap. With a traitor amongst them, the Hoax Hunters have to protect these foolish but innocent people who hated them.

The highlight of the issue is artist Axel Medellin’s depiction of Ken’s interrogation. By foregoing shock value, Medellin is aiming for the emotional truth behind the torture scenes. In creative page layouts, Ken is reliving events from his tragic life while screaming in tremendous pain. The Albino King isn’t the one causing harm, Ken is doing that all his own. Medellin makes great use of flashbacks, transitioning the panels from the past to the present.

Medellin provides little details to his designs to make the characters stand out. In the design of the Albino King, Medellin adds tattoos to the back of his head. When Regan uses her supernatural powers, there is a weird lettering surrounding her fingertips. What makes these details so important, Medellin is letting the readers know that the supernatural has its own language.

This latest paranormal mystery takes a major twist in “Hoax Hunters” #7. The “Hoax Hunters” series started off with an interesting premise and has expanded its mythology with such engaging characters.

4/5 Skulls

Reviewed by Jorge Solis

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