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[ECCC ’14] Mythos of Alien, Predator, Alien Versus Predator, and Prometheus

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Dark Horse brutally teased the panel attendees with impassioned tidbits from writers Paul Tobin, Chris Roberson, Christopher Sebela, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Josh Williamson about their new mythos of Prometheus, Aliens, and Predator. This compilation comic series will revamp the Ridley Scott world into a cannon that new and long-time fans will love and appreciate.

Christopher Sebela on Alien Versus Predator, Joshua Williamson on Predator, Chris Roberson on Alien, Paul Tobin on Promethues, and Kelly Sue Deconnick is part of the team, but it wasn’t clear what role she’ll play in the final product. We imagine she’ll write her own arc within the story, because she seemed very passionate about the main character.

Chris Roberson called Alien a little bit Lord of the Flies, a little Gilligans Island and a little LOST. He called his story a castaway type situation. He commented on the fact that he had layered his story with Gilligan’s Island the hints are about seventeen steps deep.

They all met at Scott Allie’s house with Scott’s wife making them all pastries. They all develop the characters and shared parts of the universe. Paul starts laying the groundwork on Prometheus, which launches first. He hands off the characters to the other writers so they can kill them off.

The script for Prometheus #1 was entirely finished with completed art, but FOX stepped in and had to rip the script apart. The things that took place in the original draft conflicted with the ongoing plans for future films. So the entire script had to be rewritten, and the art had to be redone.

Christopher Sebela on Alien Versus Predator called it a Frankenstien story. He loves flawed and broken characters. He aims to make us love this scummy people. Scott chimed in and said every series takes place on spaceships and features bloodbathes.

Kelly Sue Deconnick talked about the character of Angela, the leader of the salvage expedition. She’s following in the footsteps of the strong female character established from the legacy of Ripley. She has a very transformative over the course of the entire series.

They addressed the fear of knowing the world of films. They said these series should be easily digestible regardless of whether or not you know the film’s history. The only connection would be to the earliest films in the series. They want to reestablish these properties as really strong individual Dark Horse titles.

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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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