Comics
Review: ‘The Strain’ #9
The Strain #9 is full of feverish imagination as the pages come alive with pulse-pounding action and nail-biting suspense. “The Strain” puts a fresh and modern spin on vampirism, treating it as a parasitic virus that breaks down the body, altering the host in its process. Highly entertaining, “The Strain” #9 continues the quick-pace and high action.
WRITTEN BY: David Lapham
ART BY: Mike Huddleston
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: December 12, 2012
In his adaptation, David Lapham stays true to the suspenseful tone and the characterizations originally created by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. In the world of adults, Ephraim’s son, Zack, has a better understanding of what’s really going on. Because he is just a child, his attempts to warn are shrugged off because none of the adults even consider paying attention to him. Even though his ideas are far-fetched and straight out of horror movies, Zack knows what to do to defend himself.
What I really like is the introduction of the toughest and meanest exterminator you have ever seen, Vasiliy Fet. Built like a football quarterback, Vasiliy, manages to take on the vampires with his bare hands. Vasiliy isn’t even afraid of the bloodsuckers because he mistakenly thinks they are giant rodents. Ephraim’s wife, Kelly, is a teacher and she doesn’t have a lesson planned because half of her students are absent.
Mike Huddleston’s artwork brings in such stunning and shocking visuals. During the narrative, Vasiliy explains how the vampires are driving the rats out from their lairs. What I find creepy is how Huddleston focuses on the group of rats, their snarling fangs, and their beady red eyes. In a close-up, Huddleston uses a fisheye lens and distorts a reflection of Abraham in the rat’s eyeball.
The vampires are illustrated with wildly s-shaped stingers, which are reminiscent of the Reapers from Blade 2. In his slightly cartoonish character design, Vasiliy has a bulky body with a small head. It makes sense Huddleston to draw him this way because Vasiliy is more of an action hero. Towards the climax, there is a memorable action sequence between Vasiliy and a gang of bloodsuckers. He just grabs a vampire and throws him into the sunlight. In a hilarious turn, the vampires start running away from Vasiliy after one of them is burning from the sun’s rays.
“The Strain” #9 moves at breakneck speed as the narration jumps from one protagonist to another. Even if you have read the novel, Lapham’s adaptation offers enough differences to keep you intrigued. With just two issues left, all the threads are tying together nicely.
4.5/5 Skulls
Reviewed by – Jorge Solis
IDW Dark and Paramount recently joined forces to launch limited comic book tales set in the worlds of Smile and A Quiet Place, and we’ve learned today that they’ll continue hanging around in those franchise universes with two brand new limited series tales.
Entertainment Weekly has exclusively revealed this afternoon that IDW Dark’s Any Given Smile debuts in September, while A Quiet Place: Rising Tides arrives in November.
First up, from writer Stephanie Williams and artist Pablo Collar, Any Given Smile puts a football-themed twist on Parker Finn’s successful Smile movie franchise.
The five-part limited series is “set in January 1995, during the American Arena League football championship game in St. Augustine, Florida. The rising superstar of the Sharks, backup quarterback Dupree, is feeling the pressure from his teammates, the fans, and also the city’s gambling underworld, to whom he owes a considerable debt. Meanwhile, a sports journalist investigates a string of suicides that may be connected to the big game. At the very least, they are connected to a sinister entity that preys on the minds of its victims.”
From writer Declan Shalvey and artist Luke Sparrow, A Quiet Place: Rising Tides will also be a five-issue limited story. The comic book tale “brings the creatures to the Florida Keys, where a father-daughter duo attempt to survive on water in a houseboat.”
EW further details, “This tense family reunion coincides with the arrival of the vicious creatures that hunt through sound. Grace and her dad find safety on the open ocean, but she’ll have to make landfall sooner or later; the father’s oxygen tank and their supplies are running low, while a hurricane swiftly approaches.”
Learn more about both comic books over on Entertainment Weekly.
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