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Review: ‘Creepy’ #12

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As each story gets better and better, readers will simply enjoy Creepy #12 and its collection of short horror tales. You will definitely get your dose of the macabre from the ghoulish host, Uncle Creepy. With a bit of scares, comedy, and gore added in each morality tale, there is definitely something here for everyone.

WRITTEN BY: Richard Corben, John Arcudi, Ron Marz, Dan Braun, Peter Bagge
ART BY: Richard Corben, Peter Bagge, Julian Totino Tedesco, Richard P. Clark
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PRICE: $4.99
RELEASE: May 8th, 2013

In “Uncle Magnus,” a widow demands that her dead husband tell her where he stole their money. If his wife wants the money so badly, he will gladly make her wish come true and rise from the grave. In “Fishing, ” two brothers realize they are being used as bait by a magical creature. In “Role Models,” an evil cat and a talking dog are fighting each other while their human masters are looking on. In “Local Talent,” a director unknowingly hires a real-life monster for his horror movie. In “Pack Leader” an traumatized ex-soldier must deal with the numbing coldness and hunger wolves after his plane crashed in the snowy mountains.

My personal favorite in the collection is writer/artist Richard Corben’s “Uncle Magnus.” Corben provides a grim atmosphere with his excellent use of shadows. In just a few lines of dialogue, we know the greedy nephews are thieves who intend on stealing their dead uncle’s money. The nephews, who are rotten to the core, will learn a moral lesson when their dead uncle rises from the grave.
I really liked the supernatural twist in writer/artist Matthew Allison’s “Local Talent.” In a tribute to indie filmmaking, Allison narrates what a typical day is for a director. While becoming frustrated with budget and technical issues, the director has to deal with a diva who won’t stop complaining. In a big panel, Allison doesn’t hold back on the gore when the Horror Monster rips out the diva’s heart. Allison captures a caricature of the legendary Robert Evans as the producer.

Writer Ron Marz and artist Richard P. Clark craft a sinister tale about the survival of the fittest in “Fishing.” Marz uses fishing as the metaphor for “Are we the bait or the hook in life?” Clark illustrates the magical fairy as a provocative seductress in her introduction. The fairy catches the two brothers by surprise when she suddenly turns into a vicious monster with sharp fangs. Through wide shots, Clark creates an enchanting background with bright stars and the moon in the night sky.

Writer John Arcudi steers for the heart while artist Julian Totino Tedesco goes straight for the jugular in the incredibly somber, “Pack Leader.” Through captions, Arcudi keeps the readers inside the mind of a lost ex-soldier, who is trying to survive in the snowy mountains. In wide shots, Totino brushes the panels in white, as if the snow never ends. In a close-up, Totino wants readers to see the wolf with its one eye missing.

With tons of horror and wicked humor, “Creepy ” #12 has all that for readers and so much more. The “Creepy” anthology series always has such great storytellers to match with its wonderful black and white artwork.

4/5 Skulls

Reviewed by – Jorge Solis

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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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