The Evil Within 2: some Clips for Halloween!

Here's another post to play into the Halloween atmosphere.

Been playing a so-far lovely horror game for the past few days. I was in the mood for horror and since this one came out earlier this month and since I finished off my last horror game a little while ago I was out of excuses to give this one a go.

It's been a blast and is, again: so far, a definite improvement on the first installment. It's still at times annoyingly clunky, just like that one, but that is mostly counteracted by being immensely gratifying whenever you pull off something difficult. And still in story at least, Within 1 is yet the better one. But that is so far as I'm still only at chapter 5, playing on Nightmare (hard) mode, because why not? it's survival horror, baby.

Be warned, graphic violence and shocking horror to the march of incompetent gameplay ahead.

Also, please note, at times it can be genuinely disturbing.

First encounter

The sequel also isn't as linear as the first game, with the story actually incorporating more open areas filled with random encounters and even a few side quests that let you scrounge some much needed supplies or even an occasional new weapon.

The danger doesn't always come from zombies, or whatever they are, either

There are also instances of haunting and ginormous chainsaw-wielding monstrosities

And if the game doesn't give the usual suspects, it sometimes does things that are just plain inspired

Or just does its own thing and experiments, here, where the game briefly allows you into a first-person perspective that didn't feel forced or unnecessary. I'm hoping for some more to be honest.

Here is, in two parts, my first fight with the first boss in the game.

Not that spoilery as I'm not sure that this thing has much background.

It's one of those things where the first game, so far, wins out.

But then, I'm pretty sure that the tank-monster in the underground parking lot didn't have much background either.

And before this fight we are introduced to, of all things, a techno-horror mash-up between a camera and black tentacles that hangs in the sky that looks a bit like Lovecraft's daddy-Outer-God Azatoth.

Tell me that isn't what that looks like.

Also, note the small print there. I'm loving the winks to mythology.

Asmodeus, biblical demon prince of lust (according to some sources, canonical or not).

And I'll leave you with some funny stuff, to show that the game doesn't always take itself as serious as might be expected.

Fuck that, indeed. 

See you around and have a happy and fun Halloween!

Review: Cabal, Clive Barker

My lord, it's so annoying to type blurb for a novella.
In a short novel like this there's no status quo from which the story sets out and nothing to latch on to, everything hits the ground running, one scene moving at a breakneck pace right into the next.
Meaning there's no clear cut-off point for what constitutes a spoiler.

Ah, well. Misdirection it is then.

Suffering from severe mental illness, when Aaron Boone is informed by his psychiatrist, Richard Decker, that he is likely responsible for the brutally sadistic murders of 11 people, he finds his so-hard-worked-for sanity crumbling.

 He isolates himself from his girlfriend, Lori, and ceases to have contact with her despite her best intentions and repeated appeals for reconciliation.

Before he turns himself in to the police, Boone and his psychiatrist, at that one's insistence, try to fathom the depths of the self-deception at work that has enabled a killer to live beneath Boone's skin.
But try as he might, there is no understanding. The acts are monstrous, the doings of a beast.

In a fit of depression Boone walks out in front of a truck in the hopes of a swift end.

But as fate intervenes, he survives with minor injuries.

He is nonetheless hospitalized and it is there, among the broken, among the wounded and the insane that an old whisper reacquaints itself with him. A whisper speaking of a place that those without hope can go to, where those without a place to turn to can go and be welcomed. 

Midian.

It is a name whispering an invitation to the monster beneath the skin.

As I've mentioned before, Barker has a unique voice with a penchant for uniquely original turns of phrase binding the beautifully poetic with down-to-earth grubbiness. A voice that, quite frequently, indulges gleefully in delivering violence. Said violence comes coupled with, and is all the better because of immensely well-done characterization that allows for those moments to actually hit hard.

Cabal then, is a typical Clive Barker horror story with the horror relying on sudden bouts of shocking violence and gore while introduced throughout are various story elements evoking disgust, sometimes told, sometimes genuinely evoked in the reader. And then that disgust is juxtaposed with something Barker also likes to evoke in his audience; lust. Primarily through graphic and rather well-depicted sex that nonetheless has an element of outré deviancy.

Oddly then, despite all that horror, Cabal is primarily a love story fueled by themes of isolation and acceptance, both of the self and by others. Completion through acceptance.

Something of note is that, throughout the novel, barker uses instants of utter dark to cancel out the existence of light, metaphorically and literally.

"-and stood on the crypt stairs gazing into a miasma so profound it could have rotted the faith of a saint."

But surely the dark cannot exist without the light. Despite the tantalizing ideas that are only just hinted at, the theme isn't very much explored. Barker shows himself dismissive of the light and focuses squarely on the squalid human darkness to drive his narrative. As in most of his work, come to think of it. There's a reason why I think it's noteworthy here but to tell would be to spoil.

Something I also thought was a bit of a shame that did not get explored more is the theme of mental illness. It started out very believable, layered with insight, and acted as the integral springboard for the plot but further into the story the element was abandoned completely. Something to kickstart the plot rather than something with any meaningful depth to it.

So, in the end, it's not Barker at his best, but still very decent. A good horror read if what you're looking for is to be aroused and grossed-out in equal measure.

----

By the way; it's not for nothing that the publisher decided to reprint this story together with the 6th Book of Blood. The themes in Cabal show quite a large level of overlap with the first story in that one; The Life of Death, to the extent that I'm wondering if they share a universe.
Cemeteries, weirdly deformed bodies, the themes of death and decay, peace beyond life, the monstrous things hidden under the skin and of course necrophilia.
The same demon driving the man, I'm guessing.

Also, look at that delicious goat-man cover. It's one of those covers that makes you do a double-take as you realize that what you thought was on display might just have a little more depth to it.

It's not much hidden either. There's a subtle creep-factor here that is rather memorable.

The details inside the book state the photo is taken from the Pinakothek Museum, Munich/Superstock, whatever that means.

But of course, a quick glance around the internet reveals it to be a mirrored detail of this painting:

It's called "Two Satyrs" and was painted by Pieter Paul Rubens, An honest-to-god, sort of, Belgian.

One of the coolest depictions of a satyr I've ever seen.

I have a weird thing for Satyrs ever since the time I read The Circus of Doctor Lao.

Give that review a look if you're interested in why.

In the meantime, have a Happy Halloween!

-----

Because the profile picture has changed, I'm putting this up here.

Narcissism ho!

"Klop Hartje, klop."

Disclaimer: Despite initial appearances, this isn't actually about Cabal. It's about coping with mental illness, day by day.
I've tried to give as clear and structured an account as possible, but, as I'm rather tired and as I've written this in a few hours at the end of an emotionally draining and physically hard-as-balls day, it has become rather reductive and has ended up with tunnel-vison focus, or something. Might come back and edit, but I hope not. Once is enough.

Yeah, no. I came back and edited the shit out of it. I didn't leave anything out though, but I added some stuff and re-phrased certain lines I wasn't happy with.

-----

I was reading Clive Barker's Cabal in preparation for a horror-novel review for Halloween.
I picked a Barker story because I really quite enjoyed his Books of Blood and because despite the fact that he's on my list of favourite writers, I haven't actually read much by him: The Hellbound Heart, Infernal Parade (which isn't even much of a short story anthology to be honest), the Next Testament comics and the 6 Books of Blood themselves. I wanted something similar to the Blood. I still had Weaveworld on my TBR-shelves, from that visit to the Grim Bookshop, but that seemed a little too big to just pick up and start to read, I'm also vaguely aware it isn't straight-up horror. I promise myself I'll get to it one of these days.

So then, because of my experience with the Books of Blood I picked up Cabal, a 200 page novella that I'm hoping will be in the same vein as those books.
The Books of Blood were visceral, gory and memorably horrific and yet... There was an odd beauty to them, a poetry shining through out of a messy and unique voice. And I'm here for that voice, the voice of someone who stands apart from the run-of the mill crowd of horror writers. With horror on the page without it being a choice, because it sells or because it's easy, a chosen outlet, but rather someone for whom it just naturally comes out as horror, the writing without because of the demons within.

And then I started to read Cabal and the first three chapters are about mental illness...

Now, I had a rough day, in my own head at least. I was just looking for some horror. Didn't expect this, wasn't looking for this, and the question then arises; If I had known this was going to look so familiar, would I have picked Cabal to read right now?

You see, as a child I was diagnosed with Aspergers, a form of Autism. Mild.

Personally, I've always rejected that label for myself. Stamped on me by doctors looking from without, unable to look within, because I wouldn't let them. Because I, at the time, thought I was manipulating them, steering them away from where I didn't want them to go. Or from where I did not want to go. I thought this, because, in this time, I was aware of what I was doing, and I thought that I actually controlled my actions. Nothing took over and I still knew myself, I was aware of myself, so I thought I was still in control. I let it happen, because I chose to, chose to go along with the ride.
These days I wonder how much choice I actually had in these moments. Likely, no choice at all.

Intensely introspective, over the years I've reasoned away any and all appellations and labels put on me, because, after all, who can see in another's mind? And besides, I change, like we all do, from moment to moment. Every impulse from without alters the within. Again, this is something I've mentioned before here on the blog; identity as something illusory, man made up out of chemical reactions only,  and things along those lines, and so on and on. I've felt, so many times, that I have no identity and only fancies and responses to outward stimuli. Even books, the supposedly so great, magnificent thing in my life, is part of this. It came from somewhere and it stayed out of expediency, out of 'Why not just go along with it, you've got it now...' and 'It's useful at least...'.
But, to cut that line of reasoning right short, the appellations and the labels... Maybe there might be something to them, after all.

Because, despite my determination to reason my way out of all the bullshit, after all those years of self-placating argumentation, all the endless, cyclical reasoning, with all those well-worn tracks, all those roads of hurtful self-knowledge that were supposed to aid rather than pain, I still always end up in mental anguish. Breakdown after breakdown, some small, some severe. Most all of them, hidden, kept to myself, in myself.

It's rough and painful and I know it's mostly in my head. But it's how I respond and I can't help it.
It's how I seem to be.

These days, because of a steady and semi-regular association with a group of individuals in my work-space, I find myself quite unable to cope.
I come home and I crash. Alot. Several days a week.
I come home and I take the day home with me. I take those people home with me. They come in my mind, in my wake, in the trail of mud left by my shoes, like ghosts tracked into my house, on chains strung from my back and, heavily, they settle on my shoulders, like the tormenting spirit Kludde, grinning in teeth-clenched, sadist delight. And they are the grievances and the slights, the hurts and the pains. They are all the perceived and imaginary things that get me down because my thoughts never cease.
Emotions rage and howl and when it's done, when I've burnt myself out I find I'm unsure why. I know I do it to myself. I can see the edges, I can feel the cause but it's so unclear and I might as well have, indeed, imagined it.

But what is real and what is imagined? I pride myself on my reasoning and my perception and that I'm mostly right about what I see and what I know, and the conclusions I continuously draw. But maybe I'm not, maybe I'm far less perceptive than I'd even like admit here. It's a thought  that's difficult to entertain.

I don't believe I have autism, I never did. I believe I have something else, but I'll be buggered if I can actually name it.

So, the mess in my head comes home with me, and it defines my days and I find I have no control.

But I cope. Somehow.
Like everyone, I have things I do. Things I seem to like, things that bury the day-to-day angst and anxiety:

Alcohol. Comes with its own problems. But I can cope.

But mostly: Fiction.

For the thing I want most: books, stories, long-form fiction, I need to be clear-headed. With my head unfilled by a day like today. On the days off from work, uncluttered by the fallout from social interaction and all its myriad pit-falls, I have no problems. The prose flows off the page and I drink it in and it fills my mind.

Comic books and visual media I can imbibe any given time. 

As an addendum: from comics and television series and movies it is gaming that stands apart.

Gaming is good. In and out, consume and grind, the worries get put on the back burner and with time apart from them, diminish or even evaporate. But the act itself is weak. It is cowardice. It's a blindfold for the mind. It lets me settle into the role of responding to impulses only, without thought and without much consideration. It enables a shut-down that isn't present in visual media in general, where you take in what you see, but it gets judged all the while, on every level; acting, music score, dialogue, larger story, set-design, on and on.
In gaming you have to approach the world on its own terms and what it wants to show you, because there's such an obvious barrier between it and real life. Unlike anything with real people in it, it's not even trying to be a simulacrum and thus it plays by its own rules.

These things help, but above all, what matters most, what helps most, is the blog, I've been typing here for several hours, after all, it's taken away the stress of the day, and even my tiredness has been shunted aside in favour of this thing I desperately want to do, maybe need to do.

The blog is an amazingly good outlet for me. I helps, it means something and it matters and gives me something to cling on, to go on for. It fills my time and lets me look at books with a critical eye and with an insightful agenda. It's also intensely about me and the things that matter most to me, in a way that nothing yet has been. It's my way of communicating thoughts that I'm unable to share otherwise, stuck inside my head as I usually am. I write it down here, even though I don't share everything. What I do share is for the record, as honest as I can give it, whether these are times, worries, anxieties I'll grow out of or not, photographs of this moment in time, of my self. The blog helped me open up in other day-to-day situations as well. There has been growth and I'm not as closed-off as I once was.
This blog is what made that happen, but I'm worried it's a dead end, a stalling mechanism against the final day. And that some time in the future, the words will run out.

This is mostly how I cope.
Drown it out, literally or figuratively. To put a dampener on the insinuating voice that is wholly mine. In the end you either get off the bus, or you stay on and cope, somehow.

And here we are, back at the beginning; the reason for this unwanted and unlooked for figurative opening of this inverted Pandora's box, where hope has fled, but the demons remain.

At the start of the novella Cabal, Aaron Boone has a severe, as of yet undisclosed, mental illness. He speaks of his time in and out of hospitals and mental wards and of how, during that time, he has continuously met people who, to keep sane, to keep right, who to cope, cling to a talisman. An object or keepsake to safeguard their hearts and minds from suffering. A ward against chaos.
A memory of better times perhaps, a hope for the future.
Some object that will get them through, or some mantra that strengthens.

I was reading this and I thought to myself that despite all of the pain I went and still go through I didn't actually have anything like it. That I never picked up a keepsake along the way.

But, as three words suggested themselves to my mind, I quickly found that, in fact, yes I did.
I do.

"Klop, hartje. Klop"

It's not a keepsake so much as it is a mantra. It's from a dutch book I once read called Het Lied van de Raaf by Per Nilsson, a Swedish writer. In English it is called Raven's Song

Roughly, the line translates as:

"Beat, little heart. Beat."

It is a mantra that is an invocation, it's an almost literal kickstart to the heart, a beseeching for a continuation of life for the sake of that life itself, despite the loss of any and all hope.

The book is about suicide and coping with it. It's about a man who gives lectures on environmental issues at schools and who ultimately, insidiously, talks young, malleable minds into comitting suicide. It's about love and being young and growing up. A typical loss of innocence story, but with a little extra.

I can't remember if it was that good, but I do remember it. Because it gifted me with those words, because that scene where they are put to use is so powerful, and yet so gently written. At least, it is in the way in which I remember it. And occasionally, but sadly not occasionally enough, those words get dredged up from whatever errant compartment of my mind they've managed to snugly nestle in, and they let me continue on.

It is my ward against the chaos of uncontrolled thought. The call to halt the downward spiral of inner grief. It is the call for life in and of itself, just because.

No reason. Just to keep going on, just because.

"Klop, hartje. Klop."

Review: The Cold Commands, Richard Morgan

Mild spoilers-through-suggestion throughout which might also be seemingly-spoilers-but-are-actually-misdirection, maybe.

Ugh, I need better lighting

"Do I look like a fucking slave to you?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm with you again alot faster than expected. It doesn't happen alot but I practically plowed through this one, the post I mean, I very much took my sweet time with the book itself. I also wrote a whole lot more than I thought I would. 

We have arrived at book 2 in the Land Fit For Heroes Trilogy and right off the bat it becomes quite clear that it's a good one. Something I had previously not noted was the amount of humour on display, not much in the plot or storytelling, but definitely in its style and delivery, in the segways between scenes and the wry, observant, though frequently dark, humour. Needless to say at his point, I absolutely love Morgan's writing style.

There's a great strand of 'show, don't tell' shining through the narrative where he relies on his readers figuring things out in advance so that he can forego clarifying exposition and just take the next logical step in any given scene and when next we see them the characters are already in the midst of responding to it. It's as if you're shouting at the tv for your heroes to hurry up and do something and when the scene switches you're surprised to find that they're already a slight bit ahead of your exasperated suggestions.

His penchant for graphic sex also makes a re-appearance, though a little less graphic and this time testing both sides of the same-sex pond, and I was amused to note that, throughout the first two books at least, there were significantly less instances of the straight than of the gay kind.

Unlike in the first book, religion rears its sand-encrusted head, which, to be honest, I was delighted about. Give me desert-dwelling worshipers anytime. It's just like coming home. Like I noted In my Road of Faith posts; reading the Bible so much at an early age has given me an easy affinity for  devout desert culture, even if it is as throwaway as it is in the Cold Commands.

The mythology, with its Dying Earth trappings, takes a more prominent, or at least less disguised role. You'd think that would take some of the fun out of it but it's quite an accomplishment then that the mythical quality of these elements isn't diminished by their more overt real-life parallels and that instead it adds to the mystery of it all.
Morgan gives us more overt glimpses inside the workings of the mental cogitations of the Helmsmen and machinations of the Dark Court. The usual suspects, ERROR WOULD CONSTITUTE SPOILERS, are also back and despite initial appearances have a more significant than expected, though truncated role in this narrative. I'll be curious to see if the third novel will incorporate them as well.

I felt like I had to mention that because I had a different idea as to how the trilogy would go in regards to its antagonists and I'm having an odd feeling that what I initially thought about it will never even come into it. It's a strange kind of pressure that makes me really want to read the third one right now to see if I was wrong all along. It's not about ideas and guesses, rather just that I had made a wrong assumption based on what little I knew before going in. There's a race I've seen mentioned in every review of the novels, including mine, and yet... it's about the shadow they cast more than anything else, perhaps. I guess I'll have to read it to find out.

Because of how Morgan approached things in book 1, here he manages to keep us on our guard whenever he slyly repeats those story beats to give you an inkling that if things turned out badly before, they might yet again. Tension slowly starts to ratchet upwards as you realise, that the characters you thought would be safe right up to the end of the trilogy might not actually be so.
It's a long-haul tension building masterclass. Where Morgan lets scenes similar in build-up or circumstance point you towards the fact that he is of the Kill Your Darlings school or failing that of the Don't Hesitate to Grotesquely Maim Them academy.

Now bear in mind, I'm not spoiling anything here and I might just be leading you on.

I'm just saying: Damn, dude is good.

As I noted in a previous post, there are less flashbacks this time around, as most, or all, of the horrific backstories have been delivered, which mainly means that there's more time for actual present day-plot.

We again follow around three main characters as they make their individual ways through a grey and morally murky world that is only slightly hell-bent on killing them.

We follow around three characters but it's undeniably Ringil, that's still the linchpin on which the trilogy turns. It's Ringil and his character, this time less in introspection but very visibly in his actions, who progresses forward the most, if it can be called that. 

The others have their place and though always connected, aren't necessarily moved by him.

What was hinted at during the previous novel, seems to become more solid here. Where Ringil's morality was once shades of grey, here it has become tinged by the dark. As extreme acts of violence start to present themselves, acts of brutal savagery, necessary but committed with a callousness worthy of a villain, that another writer would hesitate to let his heroes commit, it becomes obvious that there is a point to this. 

The trilogy's end-goal becomes clearer and guesses made at this junction won't be far off the mark, but about these things it's more of how they come to pass, it's of the road taken rather than of the final climactic moments. And though the road is paved with blood and gristle, it's also ridiculously satisfying in how bad-ass it is.

Icky October's Horror Comics

Ugh, what a name...
Anyway, in keeping with the theme of the season and with halloween coming up, I got a (mostly) horror comic haul for this october.

As you can see, also some books.
The Cold Commands isn't new but as I finished it last night and as it was pretty awesome I included it anyway. It's the middle book in the Land Fit for Heroes trilogy and yet it doesn't seem to suffer from middle book syndrome. Rather, it is the next step in the story and it is leaps and bounds better than the Steel Remains. Less misery-infused flashbacks but, even though there's maybe less action, what there is in the present is sometimes horrifyingly brutal and nobody is a safe bet to make it out unscathed, not even the main characters. I'll see when I'll do the review for it. It won't be as long as the book 1 review earlier this month so expect it reasonably soon.

The two Clive Barker novels are, as you can see, Cabal and the Inhuman Condition.

The Inhuman Condition above is actually just a re-printed and resleeved edition of the Book of Blood volume 4, which I've already read so I'm slightly miffed. But only Slightly because instead this is a book I could just slot right into my Read bookshelves.

Cabal I haven't read yet and it'll be the read I'm starting tonight with hopefully a review up by next-week's Halloween.

The book has 5 stories in it and 4 of those I've read already since, like the Inhuman Condition above, they were originally released as another Book of Blood, this time nr 6. Which though not bad, isn't as good as the first 4 books. The Last Illusion is kick-ass though.
Expect a review for the Cabal novella only.

The third book is non fiction and it's about my beloved Penny Dreadful, season 1.

 And as I have already read some of it I can tell you it's worth the money. The presentation is amazing and every page is delivered with loving care. Full colour throughout with interviews with full cast and crew and alot of information for fans to root through. Some of it is similar to the dvd extras (season 1 again) but there's really quite alot of it.
As it's non-fiction, there won't be a review but I can already tell you I'm quite happy with it.

Onto the comic part of this post!

I've also already been reading the Hack/Slash omnibi this month,
and can someone tell me if you're supposed to pronounce that 'Hack Slash Slash' because that would actually be quite brilliant, and although it's not something I'm usually into as slasher movies hold almost no interest for me, I have at least been having fun with the series.

Tittilation and the constant promise of bloody violence will get me to give most everything a go, I guess. The art and the stories are all over the map and the lore seems to be in constant, unpremeditated, and thus hit/miss :), evolution, but hey, Cassie is hot when they draw her with clean lines and the art style you see on the cover for omnibus 1. So, yeah, if nothin else: Acceptable.

Also...

Bonus 'Heck Gal'...

Which I still can't decide if I'm amused or annoyed by.

Anyway, that's my misspent time reading comics this month, up until now at least. let's take a closer look at what's up for the (short) rest of the month.

Here's the Colder omnibus. Don't know too much about this one as I've kept myself deliberately in the dark about it as much as I could. I do know it's got extreme body horror, as should be clearly evinced by that cover, and I'm guessing the story is mortals at odds with an immortal sadist trickster. I was actually more drawn to the latter part of that sentence as I'm very curious about the mythology of this series.

Roll Credits...

Next up we have the anthology collection Tales from the Dark North with an introduction by Clive Barker. No Idea what's in here yet except of course that this book compiles stories from Nordic writers and illustrators and... eh, what is this?

Okay, I clearly did not know this wasn't actually a comic anthology.

I've obviously got nothing against this format, but I confess that this caught me off guard a little.

Somehow this one immediately starts to look like work to me.

In the end, I'll give everything a go, but other things will obviously come first.

For example, the next one is exactly what it advertises itself as. No possibility for confusion here.

The Dark Horse Book of Horror is a comic horror anthology compiled out of three previously released trade paperbacks. Quick and easy, hopefully some horrifying reads. I took a quick gander and spotted a hellboy story I don't think I read yet. Hurrrah!

Here's something that puts a smile on my face.
Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse, created, written and drawn by the brilliant Ben Templesmith, who I just can't endorse enough. See my Fell review earlier this week.

Look at that art. That's worth the price of admission right there.

Lovecraftian calamari horror with Templesmith's usual darkly humorous art and familiar witty banter and... You know, It's odd, because you usually credit the writer with all of that and while I was taking a peek at the art I caught snatches of dialogue and I was, unsurprisingly, reminded of Niles' dialogue and banter in 30 Days of Night, while it is in fact Templesmith who takes up every single art and writing duty here. His art is so well done and so singular it doesn't fail to summon up a cheery sense of feel-good, just by the power of association alone.
Again, very unsurprisingly, I'm very much looking forward to this one.

Speaking of Lovecraftian Calamari horror...

Here's the full set.

The third Providence hardback also arrived recently and I'm itching to dive into the completed series now. Building on and alongside Moore's previous visit to Lovecraft's universe: the Neonomicon, I'm both wary and excited for what is to come. This is the continuation and resolution to that particular storyline so I'm curious to see if Moore sticks the landing. I don't imagine there'll be the same level of fish-rape (It sounds funny, I know, but really it's quite horrifying) going on here as there was in that comic, because obviously, If you've read it, you know why that it's there and that it has served its purpose, but with this kinQ of fiction you can never quite know. I'm hoping the story will Provide (ba-dum-tish) a Cthulhu-esque end-of-the-world scenario to Moore's visit to Lovecraft's universe. Just the next logical step really.

I had previously read the reasonably accomplished Fall of Cthulhu omnibus but as I wasn't at all familiar with The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, one of the few stories in Lovecraft's entire oeuvre that I haven't read yet, alot of the characters in the series were bafflingly unfamiliar and I had a hard time understanding just what the hell was going on.

Very entertaining though.

Here's hoping for something more familiar.

Up next:

Tokyo Ghost isn't horror, at least I don't think so, but after reading Remender's incredibly good space-cowboy saga I had been giving this the lustful eye now for a while. Finally took the plunge and ordered it. Hopefully it'll manage to leave me with the same emotional impact as the Incredible Fear Agent series did.

And here is God Country, because I'd love to read something along the lines of the Goddamned and I haven't heard anything new on the continuation of that series yet. Although I'll have something neat to show you soon, somewhere next month.

Religious eschatological horror, or deicide at least (what's in a name, after all) always, ALWAYS, gets my vote. Again, kept myself in the dark on this one. Look at the picture below and you've got as much information as I do. Humour  and artstyle seem at the very least okay.

And last, and hopefully not least...

I'm actually not going to talk about this one, as I'm doing alot of writing on the subject of Penny Dreadful these days, Mostly just for myself. Likely that'll not see the light of the blog cast on it as it's more me coming to terms with how everything continues after the televisionseries has ended and the comic takes over.

But I'll give it a read one of these days, maybe only when the whole comic series is done. Maybe not.

We'll see, I guess.

Enjoy the rest of your Icky October...

(cringe)

Comic Review: Fell volume 1: Feral City

Welcome to Snowtown.

Police detective Richard Fell, for whatever nefarious or tragic reasons not yet quite revealed by issue 9, has been reassigned to a homicide detective position in the malignantly dilapidated and severely undermanned snowtown police district, just over the bridge from his old job.

Just over the bridge, but it might as well be a country or even a lifetime away. Snowtown is virtually a purgatory, where crime and poverty feed into eachother to create a dark but apathic cityscape where hope has burned out long ago, and where the only ones who thrive are the predators.

We are kept in the dark about the reasons for Fell's transfer, other than a few vague hints that seem standard but might also be just so much more.

He arrives in the grey squalor of his new district but for whatever reason, whatever strength of character or whatever quest for redemption that might be burning deep inside, he manages not to let the place drag him down to its level, and soon he becomes the righteous protector of Snowtown's down-trodden.

 

Though he is a lawman through and through, he will bend every inch of that law wherever it lets those who deserve its judgement off the noose. And where those who need justice can find none, he will stand. Because Fell has, above all, his eyes firmly fixed on aiding his fellow man. On helping those who can not help themselves, those who are beaten down and crushed by the hopelessness of life and the cruelty of others.

It's about the sickening, nauseating dark heart of humanity, and of how one man can make a difference.

Every issue stands on its own and there isn't a series spanning arc but whatever little there is, really is quite good.

Templesmith's art is visibly better than it was in the 30 Days of Night stories, with a broader palette of colours that nonetheless relies on dirty tones of grit and shadow, all the while conveying a pervading mood of downtrodden misery and an atmosphere of decay.
The faces and the subtlety of his expressions have never looked better and with a minimum of effort manage to convey a world of emotion.

But occasionally subtlety can take its smooth little corpus and jump out of the window to make way for the occasional moment of violence in a random street brawl or tense stand-off.

I love this comic. I've been wanting to give it a review for a while and now here we are.

Go buy this comic if  you're interested by the above or if the art looks good to you. You won't be disappointed.

Ooooor, maybe you will, because there is in fact a small problem.

Written by Warren Ellis and with art by the brilliant Ben Templesmith,  Fell's most predominant claim to fame lies in that it started out as an experimental format for the comic book medium. Primarily the draw was in in selling a cheaper, shorter comic book that with each 18-page issue could tell a reasonably concise stand-alone story, that nonetheless could slot into a larger whole, with the catch that each individual issue, regardless of its overall place in the series, could be an easy jumping-on point for newcomers. Probably not accidentally just like the growing inundation of procedurally based crime stories or detective soap operas on television, which for some reason still manage to grab all the attention while better shows languish by the wayside...

After the ninth issue the series ended, or well, technically it went on a hiatus, but I think that almost ten years later we don't need to mince words about this anymore.
The reason for this premature ending to this particular comic is something that has been known to happen in this increasingly digital age (and don't I know that as well, with my recent pc troubles and all): a computer crash resulting in the loss of Ellis' scripts for the rest of the series.

Similarly, it reminds me of Glen Cook's (what was it?) 25 year hiatus in the Dread Empire series. Though there the loss of his manuscript was on account of someone literally breaking into his house and stealing it, never to be seen again, not at all like a computer error.
Except also, that story might give a glimpse of hope as Glen Cook did eventually get around to finishing his series, albeit in a very much shortened and yet acceptably satisfying manner.
Going by that precedent there might just be hope yet for detective Fell. let's just hope it isn't going to take quite as long.

Run-up to a special comic

Like in alot of my doings I seem to have an inability to contain myself and this particular comic review eventually widened to also become about my comic experiences in getting to it. Two posts then. One the professional (HAHAHAHA) review, the other; this one. The Run-up.

When I seriously got into comics in, I think in September of 2013, there were a few names that I was going to try out, just going off, primarily, on their movie adaptations.

Urban Dredd

There were the fun Hellboy movies with lovecraftian monsters and its loveable demonic hero. The famously bloody but flawed, bat-shit insane 30 Days of Night horror film. The utterly badass demonslaying Constantine movie, which afterwards I found out about that nobody liked (sucks for them I guess).

Judge Dredd had a movie in its future that everyone agreed was looking pretty spot-on and that I also liked the look of, (it wasn't a superhero movie and it had undertones of satire and was described, both comic and movie, as being superviolent). I also loved and had endlessly rewatched the V for Vendetta film, which I still consider pretty much a perfect movie, and that's not just because of Natalie Portman. Although... damn. Look at that face.

Incidentally, the first physical dvd I ever bought,
back in the time when every purchase was still of monumental significance.

So in short order I bought Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, the then just newly releasing editions for  Vertigo's Hellblazer series, the Judge Dredd Case Files and the library editions of Hellboy. And then as I didn't want to read the popular Conan at the time, but loving anything with swords and scowling dudes hacking at each other's throats, I looked for something similar but different. I ended up with the irish battle-loving Slaine and the short-lived but much loved by me: Valen the Outcast.
Later I picked up some more comics which I had heard were good. Sandman, Wasteland, Hellspawn and of course the beautiful Saga. After that the list widens significantly enough and quickly enough that I'll forego writing down the rest. In short, in my new discovery, I was quite spoiled and I had alot of fun.

Meanwhile though, I had forgotten about one of those earliest comics that I had actually wanted to check out.

So, a year after having purchased my very first comic collection; Hellblazer: Original Sins, on august 2014 I finally got to the 30 days of night comic.

I've always been drawn to the dark and the cover art was some rather messed up disgusting stuff, so I had high hopes going in.

But when it arrived and I finally got to it I was at first a little stunned. Like Hellboy and Hellblazer and V for Vendetta it wasn't at all what I thought it would be. The art was unlike what I had expected, with yet again no clean lines and highly impressionistic artwork.

You need to understand that I grew up in Belgium and whatever comics I picked up as a kid, were all endowed with clean line art by artists like Vandersteen, Hergé or Uderzo. I wasn't quite prepared for the wide variety of artistic approach in american comics.

Suske en Wiske,
likely better known as Bob et Bobette.

But I've never been one to put down a book once begun and the story swiflty drew me in and the artwork quickly grew on me. The more I read it, the more I loved it. 

Eben and Stella. What a gorgeous and horrifying romance, what a story. And the art: So many things were unique and memorable; the disturbing faces, the contrast of blood-red and snow-white, the shocking violence and of course the visual uniqueness of the vampires themselves. I also loved the complicated but funny and yet extremely dark Juarez or Lex Nova and the Case of the 400 Dead Mexican Girls, it's easily my favourite of the 30 days cycle and I ocassionally go back and have a quick re-read.

So then, mainly the reason for this post; Ben Templesmith's art.

Nobody does faces and subtlety like Ben Templesmith. Nobody has his style, this ever-present thing that constantly gives off almost tangible mood. It's wholly unique, and the people that inevitably try to emulate him fail woefully.

It's an artstyle I've fallen more in love with the longer I'm acquainted with it and it's a surprise then to find that I've only read Hellspawn and the 30 days of Night cycle. I usually go for stories and pick the best of the best, the most well known and critically acclaimed and never really pick up a comic for its art, so I guess it's not really that surprising.

Anyway, many comics and much reading later something new caught me eye. I had kept hearing again and again some positive murmurings concerning a certain comic book.

A series llustrated by Ben templesmith and with writing duties by Warren Ellis.

Warren ellis I thought I wasn't familiar with despite him doing a brieft stint in Hellblazer, and as I hadn't read beyond the 9th (I think) omnibus I haven'gotten to his run yet.
But a quick rummage through his bibliography revealed that we had had prior engagement before and that it was rather mixed at best.

Wolfskin was a comic I bought that I thought might be good, anything with violent loner barbarians catches my fancy, you know. But the writing was only semi-good and the art was typically grotesquely hideous for Avatar Press. Hey, I'm trying to reserve judgement but either you like it or you don't.

Wolfskin volume 2: the Hundreth Dream however, was more than just a step in the right direction. Both in art and in story it was a leap, nay 'twas a glorious bound straight into the heart of my fun place. Companionable banter while following around a group of tough dudes who eventually have to stand up, unflinching, in the face of certain death, with bloody blade and gore-drenched axe, fighting for a cause.

But I guess either way it's a dumb thing to go into a Swords and Fantasy comic looking for a great storyline. This was my first story experience with him and it wasn't the best, but that didn't mean he wasn't good. He has high credits even if this one wasn't exactly one of them. He was the one who wrote Transmetropolitan, you know, which I gather is a big thing if you're into satire.

And even then, I figured, if I don't like it, it's only one trade paperback.
So with dubious writing credits and art that I really wanted to see more of, I stopped worrying about it and I took the plunge.

And so I ordered Fell: Feral City.