Comics
Review: ‘Mars Attacks: The Holidays’
With a parade of quirky visual gags, Mars Attacks: The Holidays is a hilarious collection of sci-fi comedy short tales. The Martian invaders are spreading chaos and mayhem over the beloved holiday season. Humanity will not back down and let their earth be taken over by the space aliens. For pure escapism and fantasy, the fun and excitement within these pages is highly contagious.
WRITTEN BY: Fred Hembeck, Bill Morrison, Ian Boothby, Dean Haspiel
ART BY: Fred Hembeck, Tone Rodriguez, Alan Robinson, Dean Haspiel
PUBLISHER: IDW Publishing
PRICE: $7.99
RELEASE: October 31st, 2012
In Fred Hembeck’s “All Hallow’s Steve,” two brothers, Steve and Ricky, are walking aimlessly around their neighborhood for candy. The two never realize they are being followed by real Martian scouts. They all arrive at a Halloween party, where the Martians end up confronting numerous teens in costumes, pretending to be Dracula, Napoleon, and Elvis Presley. Hembeck delivers the hilarious one-liners as well the visual puns. When the brothers realize there are actual aliens crashing their party, the Elvis Presley- wannabe is the first one fighting the extraterrestrials, beating them up with his wooden guitar. Ricky is supposed to look like The Flintstones’ character, The Great Gazoo. It just looks completely wrong and hilarious at the same time, when Ricky, as the Great Gazoo, is choking the Martian with a pillow.
In Bill Morrison’s “The Man Who Cried, ‘Martian,'” an old man recounts to his grandson what happened years ago when the Martians arrived. In order to test humanity’s reactions, the space invaders forced Orson Welles to put on a fake radio show about a hostile invasion in New Jersey. While the rest of the world realized the show was supposedly a hoax, the real invasion was actually happening. After discovering the alien spaceship in the woods, brave veterans from three wars gather together their guns to put a stop to the invasion. Through hairstyles and clothing, Morrison’s character designs is a nostalgic reminder of the ’50s. The original War of the Worlds is used as a reference when the soldiers start attacking the Martians and stealing their weapons.
In Ian Boothby/Art Robinson’s “Thanksgiving,” the alien invasion occurs right in front of the millions of eyes watching the holiday parade. Because a scientist predicted this invasion happening, all the parade floats suddenly come to life. This is a very charming and humorous spoof, using iconic figures of popular culture to attack the Martians. Robinson recreates television moments, while putting Martians in their place, such as when Bart Simpson is being strangled by an alien spaceship. After Bart’s head pops out of his robotic body, Bullwinkle jumps in and locks his horns into the spaceships.
The most serious and the best of the tales is Dean Haspiel’s ” Mars Attacks Christmas.” Haspiel plays off of the WWI urban legend, though many say true story, when the British and German troops called a truce, a momentary ceasefire, on Christmas day. During the war between Martians and humans, both sides call for a truce on Christmas. The survivors mourn their dead, and the Martians carry their fallen comrades away. The rebel fighters and Martians join together in peaceful harmony singing “Silent Night.” Haspiel kicks in the sadness as Christmas is over and war continues the next day.
Campiness at its best, “Mars Attacks: The Holidays” benefits from its zany and hilarious spoof of 1950’s flying saucer movies. These creative teams of writers and artists sure know how to have fun with their oddball ideas. As the Martians invade each month of the holiday season, there is plenty about each tale to enjoy.
Rating: 3.5/5 skulls
Reviewed by Jorge Solis
Comics
‘You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive’ – IDW Dark’s Next Horror Comic Will Make You Question Reality
Five friends. Four houses. One perfect life. Bloody Disgusting is excited to exclusively announce You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive, a brand new horror comic from IDW Dark.
From Eisner-Nominated writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, and rising horror artist Heather Vaughan, You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is described as a “paranoia-laced, socially-conscious, horror mystery that will leave you questioning reality, and reveal that this crafted world is more of a nightmare than the idealistic dream they were expecting.”
Phoebe Joplin has never questioned the world her parents built: a secluded community where she and her friends were raised to be smarter, stronger, and better than anyone else. No distractions. No dangers. No secrets. Until the night of their graduation.
When one of them dies under impossible circumstances, Phee starts to pull at the edges of her perfect life—and what she finds is something far more terrifying than she ever imagined.
Because this place isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a cage. And no one who discovers the truth ever leaves it alive.
Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing (Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface, Star Trek: The Last Starship) co-write the upcoming IDW Dark horror comic, featuring art by Heather Vaughan.
Jackson Lanzing said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting, “You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is in many ways a spiritual successor to our last creator-owned horror, The Principles of Necromancy – a dive into the promise and consequence of playing god with the blood of innocents. But the Hivemind book this reminds me of most is Clayface: One Bad Day. This is a deeply human story with intensely raw emotions – five best friends and their five mysterious parents, tearing one another apart for the promise of some impossible glory that’s waiting just beyond their darkest actions. We’re thrilled to be bringing this story to life with our long-time partner in crime, editor Heather Antos, at IDW Dark – and we’re particularly excited to give our Clayface fans a new, brutal and emotional horror made just for them.”
Adds Collin Kelly, “We’re deconstructing a feeling that seems universal these days; our elders have a death grip on their power, without any intention of giving it up to the generations that come next. YNLTPA is about growing up with the limitless potential of the future… and realizing how much it’s a lie we’ve been fed to keep us under the yoke of the past. Bringing this brutal experience to life is our artist and co-creator, Heather Vaughan, who brings an incredible amount of humanity to our cast. But it’s in our youthful leads that Heather’s art really shines – you are going to fall in love with these young people, even as they go through the worst experience of their lives. What we’ve all crafted together is going to be tragic, painful, but above all else, sincere – with a future so uncertain, there’s only one thing we can trust: you’ll never leave this place alive.”
“Some horror stories are about monsters in the dark. YNLTPA is about realizing the monsters raised you,” previews Senior Group Editor Heather Antos. “Working with Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly on this series has been a dream in the darkest possible way. They’ve built a story that’s layered, brutal, and deeply emotional, and every issue gives artist Heather Vaughan opportunities to push the art into places that feel both haunting and deeply personal. Some horror comics will keep you up at night…this is one that will stick with you for years to come.”
The first issue of You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive goes on sale October 14, 2026! Make sure to pre-order at your local comic shop by September to guarantee a copy.
Exclusively check out the various covers for Issue #1 down below.
IDW Publishing’s horror imprint IDW DARK features comics like A Quiet Place: Storm Warning, Smile: For the Camera, The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, The Twilight Zone, Event Horizon: Dark Descent & Event Horizon: Inferno, and more.
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