If the term “fotonovela” has you thinking of teen magazines, 70s football albums and tabloid cartoon strips, think again; Stavit looks to bring an attention to detail to the technique that might just change your mind about photographic comics. For Isness, which chronicles the last 24 hours in the lives of mankind’s sole surviving family, she’d already comprised over 40,000 images to work from before the project was fully funded.

Stavit was attempting to raise funds for the book via Kickstarter, and successfully attracted 102 backers and over $7,000 to make the project a reality. Not bad at all.

Images and progress reports on the project can be followed over at www.countercomics.com. There’s a hell of a lot of work going into this unique and macabre title, as you can see from the preview (or, if you will, “trailer”) below.

Press Release: Once you have survived drugged toads, vampire attacks, and the attempted realignment of reality. What else in life can possibly phase you. Karl Christian Krumpholz tackles that question as his erstwhile hero Byron returns for another set of adventures in an all new comic book series Byron: Die Byron Die, from SLG Publishing.

Now thinking of himself as some sort of ‘Psychic Investigator’, he’s on the road, entering the wild places of America and searching for his missing brother, H.P.. How hard can finding a talkative two-headed pickled punk be? America may a big place after all, but such things tend to stand out.

Byron: Die Byron Die

Over his search, Byron will meet fashionable hillbillies, christian dominatrix, mad bartenders, tiki zombies, fox and spider women, pagan hippies, saintly murderers, spirits, gods, the Book of Life itself, and a strange woman called ‘Widdershin.’ Byron already realizes that his life is not what is seemed to be. Now he’s finding out that the world is not what is seemed to be either.

The first Byron story, Byron: Mad, Bad and Dangerous, was released as a graphic novel by SLG Publishing. The publisher has decided to do the initial release of Die Byron Die as digital comics serializing them in downloadable form. Issue #1 and #2 of the series were released on the SLG Publishing website as ePub and PDF files and will follow on all of the companies digital partners application at some point in the future. Issue #1 of the series is free and the subsuquent issues will be 99¢.

“The decision to go digital first with new releases has been popping around in my head for some time” said SLG president Dan Vado “The state of the marketplace kind of dictates that we, at some point, try something like this as a brand and market building exercise” then adding “we need to find out if the demand for digital comics extends to our type of comics and to what extent people who want our kind of material will support this method of distribution.”

If countless books and movies are anything to go by, we do love to watch middle classed families fall apart. Denise Mina’s A Sickness in the Family, the latest in DC’s Vertigo Crime imprint, is a gruesome study of one such affluent and revolting clan. The Ushers are scum with table manners; Ted and his adulterous wife Biddy despise one another, while offspring William and Amy stick around solely for fear of losing their inheritance. Only adopted son Sam is in any way irredeemable, and the sole Usher to care for dear old Grandma Martha after she suffers a stroke.

Mina takes her time atrophying the Ushers, kicking their downfall into motion with the brutal murder of the downstairs neighbours. When Ted decides to expand their property into the now empty apartment below, the resulting echo their cavernous property now creates slowly drives the family towards madness. Furthermore, several horrific incidents soon convince the Ushers that a murderer lives amongst their brood.

A Sickness in the Family - Denise Mina

This leads us to the subplot of the witch that Sam is convinced still haunts their home. I was having so much fun seeing this dysfunctional household crumble, that the notion of a 16^th Century witch unjustly murdered in the same spot as the Ushers’ abode felt clichéd, entirely unnecessary, and destined to drag the story into the depths of poorly conceived horror fiction. But Scottish crime writer Mina does something unexpected with this supernatural element, leading to a twist ending so expertly pulled off that you’ll feel the need to slap your forehead for not spotting the red herrings early on.

The monochrome art by Antonio Fuso (Fear Agent) is stylish, but always places focus on the story, which racks up the tension with level of menace and mystery rarely conveyed through comics. I wasn’t a particularly big fan of Mina’s Hellblazer arc (Empathy is the Enemy / The Red Right Hand), but with the digest Vertigo Crime format her noir sensibilities are given ample opportunity to electrify. And even if A Sickness in the Family’s ending is somewhat abrupt and callous, it’s executed with a sense of bleak humour that harks back to the EC era’s finest.

9/10

Press Release: Frank Forte, publisher of Asylum Press, announces the release of a new 32-page preview of their newest anthology, Zombie Terrors.  ”We had some production delays, but the book looks great.,” says Publisher/Creator Frank Forte, “We should have the books in hand by Nov. 22, 2010.”

Because of the delay Asylum Press had to cancel the book originally scheduled to ship Sept. 2010.  “We did what’s called an Order adjustment request,” explains Forte, ” Retailers have form Nov. 11th to Nov. 19th to adjust their orders.  They can either decrease or increase.  We hope they increase.  I can’t apologize enough for the delay.  I know retailers don;t like late books, but I think we’ve delivered a great anthology.  We upped the original page count from 152 to 184 and gave the fans some great zombie tales.”

“We’re calling it Zombie Terrors, an Anthology of the Undead,” says Publisher/Creator Frank Forte, “it’s a collection of horrific and fantastic stories featuring everyone’s favorite brain eaters.”

Zombie Terrors

Szymon Kudranski (SPAWN) brings us The Barber, a tale of the undead and the Mob. In Creature Converts, by Canadian storyboard and comic artist Craig Wilson, a cat lady’s feline friends develop a taste for the flesh.  In Feast ( written by Royal McGraw (Batman:Battle for the Cowl, Commissioner Gordon), Illustrated by Adauto Silva ) a gangster’s taste for a delicacy becomes his end.  Dwayne Harris unearths zombies from 1776 in Deadcoats.  In Hate by Doug Williams, a zombie must confront what he’s become.  Billy George brings us The Undead Templars a tale of the blind dead.  Allison written by Frank Forte and illustrated by horror master Tim Vigil, colored by Joe Vigil,  a lovesick man tries to resurrect his dead lover with horrifying results.  Bond follows a lone survivor in a zombie holocaust (by Euro guys Bartosz Sztybor and Macie Wodz). Grmbghraaaaagh! (by Bartosz Sztybor and Pawel Wojiechowicz) is a tale of zombies trying to escape what they are.  Dead of Night by Joie Simmons is a great B&W tale.  David Paleo brings Rot Clowns. Aaron Rintoul brings When we Disappear, a esoteric tale of zombie armageddon where we track two lovers trying to survive.  Other tales by Robert S. Rhine (Girls and Corpses) , Nenad Gucunja, JC Wong, and Zombie Evolution by Pyko.

Also includes a special 24 PAGE preview of the upcoming voodoo/zombie series Undead Evil illustrated by Nenad Gucunja.  Pin-ups by David Hartman, Jason Edmiston and Doug Williams. Over 15 flesh-eating tales to shock and horrify! ! Cover by Aly Fell

Preview can be seen here: http://www.asylumpress.com/ZT_Preview.html

Official site: zombieterrors.com

Writers and Artists: Frank Forte, Tim Vigil, Szymon Kudranski, Robert S. Rhine, Royal McGraw, Nenad Gucunja, Steve Mannion, Adauto Silva, David Paleo, Dwayne Harris, David Hartman, Doug Williams, Craig Wilson.
Format: SC, 184 pgs, COLOR , perfect bound
Retail Price: $14.95
New Ship Date: Nov. 2010
ISBN13: 978-1-61724-001-0

Isness: A Cinematic Graphic Novel

For those unaware of what exactly a fotonovela is, the format was essentially a comic book with photos instead of illustrations. Though the technique pretty much died out in the 70s, it’s still used to “humorous” effect in such classy publications as the The Sun. But while the fotonovelas of yore were pulpy, trashy affairs (or inexpensive movie adaptations) Isness looks to be comprised from painstakingly highly polished shots that look like stills from a movie, albeit an eerie, gore-drenched B-movie.

There’s clearly a lot of hard work and attention to detail going into this project, and Stavit already has a whopping 40,000 images to work from. The costumes look superb, and should the team get the donations they require the house exterior and surroundings will be built as miniatures and added to the photography via green screen. If there’s one thing I love more than anything, its detailed dioramas of dilapidated dystopias – and alliterations, naturally.

For information on the comic, as well as a ton of photos, visit countercomics.com. As with an ever-increasing number of indie projects, the guys behind Isness are seeking financial support for the project up at the brilliant kickstarter.com. Those who pledge a few dollars will receive anything from custom prints to signed copies of the book and, most intriguingly, a “one-of-a-kind, recycled and re-designed T-shirt featuring an ISNESS image of your choice!”

Campfire, 2010
Script: CEL Welsh
Pencils: Lalit Kumar Sharma
Inks: Jagdish Kumar
Colours: Vijay Sharma

I originally read Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde over a decade ago, but only while reading Campfire’s comic adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Victorian morality tale did it occur to me just how difficult a book it must be to adapt. Much of this is due to the novella’s story-within-a-story framework; whereas many film adaptations have retold the tale from Dr Henry Jekyll’s perspective, the original novella follows the investigative efforts of lawyer Gabriel John Utterson, whose quest to track down violent deviant Edward Hyde yields a startling conclusion.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Of course, some 120 years after Stevenson’s seminal work debuted, it’s common knowledge that Jekyll and Hyde transpire to be the same person, the divorced good and evil psyches of a once balanced individual. But it’s to the credit of CEL Welsh, who scripts this particular adaptation, that Campfire’s version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde works well in graphic novel form. It also helps that the novella’s final act, which is narrated by a dying Jekyll in the form of a farewell letter, is perfectly suited to the comic medium.

Campfire’s books are aimed at younger readers, which you might think would require censorship of Hyde’s contemptible actions, but in fact Stevenson’s original only vaguely hinted at the naughty business Jekyll’s alter ego got up to at night. The book also contains a feature on several real life mad scientists such as Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov and Harry Harlow, whose experiments were far more disturbing than anything a fiction writer could come up with.

Lalit Kumar Sharma’s illustrations would have been great were it not for a single anachronistic error in his character designs that niggled at me throughout. Bizarrely, Utterson is depicted wearing a raincoat and fedora outfit that make him appear to have stepped straight out of a Raymond Chandler movie. According to Wikipedia the fedora originates from the 1890s (the novella was first published in 1886) as a woman’s fashion accessory, and did not become mainstream male apparel until the 1920s.

No other character dresses like Utterson, which makes his dress sense all the more incongruous. And it’s a shame, because otherwise this is a nice looking book, and the costumes and landscapes capture the look of the period. Lalit Kumar Sharma nails the physical difference between Jekyll and Hyde, only gently warping his facial features so that both characters are still recognisable as two sides of the same coin, and the inkwork by Jagdish Kumar also keeps the visuals in line with the Victorian setting.

The fedora issue aside, this isn’t by any means a bad attempt at translating Stevenson’s source material into something kids might want to pick up. Campfire’s adaptation doesn’t dumb the story down, and while this effort is obviously no substitute for Stevenson’s novella, it’s a faithful and engaging enough iteration to aim teenage readers towards Stevenson’s other works.

7/10

For more on Campfire’s range of Classics, Biographies, Originals and Mythology titles visit www.campfire.co.in.

Go on, admit it. When you first heard the title Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a small part of you was intrigued. You may have rolled your eyes in disgust, or proclaimed the decline of modern literature, but inside you were sniggering.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel

I’m in an awkward position to be reviewing this book, as I have read neither Seth Graham-Smith’s novel nor indeed Jane Austen’s perennial favourite. The closest I’ve got to the original source material was a TV adaptation, but I’d still like to believe I could get in on the joke, so to speak, and appreciate where and how Graham-Smith inserted the undead into Austen’s text.

Tony Lee does not have it easy in adapting Graham-Smith’s literary perversion, in that part of the fun in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is, so I’m told, that it begins much like Austen’s original, with the “unmentionables” (as the zombies are usually referred to) slowly munching their way into the original text and sending it in new directions.

This is, of course, impossible to translate into the comic format. In an odd way, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel reminds me of Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita. Kubrick presumably understood the book and what made it work, yet by adapting the novel into film he was always going to have to excise the dense reflective narrative that defined Nabokov’s opus. Likewise, comic stalwart Tony Lee does as good a job as is possible here, but there’s definitely a sense that something has been lost in translation.

It doesn’t help that the zombie infested Hampshire inhabited by Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy isn’t in any way credible. The problem isn’t, as you might instantly assume, with the walking corpses littering the English landscape, but the martial arts training that the Bennet sisters are devoted to. Oddly, the zombies fit quite suitably into Austen’s quaint little world; it’s the samurai swords and ninjitsu elements that feel entirely incongruous to the characters and their prim society.

Cliff Richards, whose work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer managed to capture the TV source material perfectly, takes an unusual approach with this book. His illustrations are essentially abandoned at the pencilling stage, with several prominent elements or characters in each panel highlighted by thick outlines. The result takes some getting used to, and while the action scenes occasionally become confusing because of a lack of clarity, this stylistic choice does suit the book. Richard’s knack for illustrating compellingly luscious women still shines throughout.

It perhaps goes without saying that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel is a one note joke, though I must confess that the book left me feeling confused, alienated even. But I suspect that most of my issues with the story were with Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel rather than this graphic novel. Tony Lee and Cliff Richards have delivered a finely-crafted adaptation, but it’s one that those familiar with both source novels are likely to appreciate most.

6/10

Paper Street Comics
Story: Gentry Smith, Stan Wedeking
Art: Daniel Wichinson (finishes, covers by Gentry Smith)

Horror titles may constitute a large percentage of all indie and small press comics currently being published, but the medium is rarely used to nearly as good effect as its cinematic counterpart. Sure, horror comics can be gruesome, graphic, gory, and numerous other words begging in with G, but they rarely approach that sense of tension, of spine-tingling dread, that the very best horror movies are capable of inflicting upon us. That Lost in the Woods, a 4-part thriller from Paper Street Comics, succeeds to some degree at building such tension is really no mean feat.

Lost in the Woods #3

The plot begins with teenage outcast Jessica and her mother moving to a new school to escape an abusive father. When Jess finds a tortured and barely alive boy in the nearby woods, her subsequent actions make her the target of English teacher and friendly neighbourhood serial killer Doug Crane. But Jess is no victim, and feeding on her hatred of her father, Crane slowly works on training Jess as his protégé.

Mercifully, the comic itself isn’t quite as amoral as the above synopsis might suggest. Writers Gentry Smith and Stan Wedeking could easily have catered to the gore-porn market, but have thankfully landed the book on the right side of tasteful. Jessica is a morally confused character, prone to manipulation not only from Crane but from opposing classroom factions, yet her actions never bring her to a point beyond redemption. The level of violence is also refreshingly moderate, making Crane’s shift from upstanding citizen to cold-blooded killer all the more chilling.

Argentinean illustrator Daniel Wichinson’s art is suitably immersive, maintaining a cinematic ambiance throughout. Rather than opting for the strong light/dark contrast that is seemingly the standard in monochromic comics, his clean greyscale art and intricately rendered backgrounds grant Lost in the Woods the look of a black and white movie.

It probably goes without saying that as Jessica struggles to escape Mister Crane’s influence Lost in the Woods suffers from several lapses in logic. But horror fans are accustomed to such implausible genre conventions that they’ll likely embrace this series for its tense, deliberate pacing and sympathetic murderer-in-the-making. With a sharp script that finds the right balance between slasher pic thrills and character-driven crisis, this miniseries is definitely worth a look.

I was sent digital copies of the first 3 issues of 4 for review, and would happily have paid for the concluding issue there and then were it not currently unavailable – though the series will be complete (and a trade paperback made available) this summer.

The first 2 issues of Lost in the Woods are available from ComicXpress for $2.50 each (32 pages). For more information visit www.gentrysmith.net.

It’s practically impossible to review American Vampire without first mentioning that Vertigo’s latest marks the comic book debut of Stephen King, who’ll be providing a 5-part secondary tale in this ongoing “vampires through the ages” series from Scott Snyder. And a solid debut it is too, not just from King but particularly Snyder, whose first creator-owned title opens up a world of infinite possibilities in its bumper sized first issue.

American Vampire #1

American Vampire begins with Snyder’s half, the tragic tale of aspiring actress Pearl Jones in 1920s Los Angeles, as we discover how she came to end up bloodied and naked in a pit of corpses. In King’s story, ‘Bad Blood,’ failed novelist Will Bunting recounts the real events that inspired his single literary effort; the execution of outlaw Skinner Sweet in Colorado, 1880.

Skinner is the element that ties these two plots together, seemingly a vampire born in daylight and immune to its devastating effects. Both Snyder and King stay true to vampiric convention, but it’s their execution that makes this series stand out. These aren’t the effeminate, naval gazing bloodsuckers that have followed in Twilight’s wake, but the shapeshifting bogeymen of yore, and both sections are excruciatingly suspenseful reads.

But in many ways it’s Rafael Albuquerque and Dave McCaig that are the stars of this siamese show, rendering both King and Snyder’s tales with distinctly separate approaches. In the Los Angeles-set segment Albuquerque’s lines are clean and McCaig’s palette bold, while in the 1880’s portion the duo’s art is as rough and grimy as the era they portray. Keeping the same artists for each section has certainly paid off, bestowing the book a cohesion that similar anthology titles lack.

The majority of monthly comic titles are now written with trade paperbacks in mind, and often suffer when read in instalments. Not so with American Vampire. Both of the two tales in this first issue of Snyder’s potential epic feel satisfyingly complete, much like the E.C. horror anthologies of yesteryear but running within an encompassing narrative. Definitely a series to get excited about.

8/10

The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans

Press Release below:

Nights of terror! A city awash in blood! New Orleans right after the First World War. The party returns to the Big Easy but someone looks to spoil it. Grocers are being murdered in the dead of night by someone grabbing their axe and hacking them right in their own cushy beds! The pattern for each murder is the same: a piece of the door is removed for entry, the axe is borrowed on the property, and the assailant aims straight for the head! Why? How could he fit through that piece in the door? The man is never found for sure but speculations abound which Geary presents with his usual gusto!

80 pages, B&W, jacketed hardcover, $15.99. ISBN 978-1-56163-581-8

A whole bunch of Geary’s pages can be enjoyed at www.nbmpub.com/mystery/axepre1.html