A glimpse beyond The Veil, Torn Asunder

Holy shit, I just noticed that I hadn't posted this one.

Obviously,

Massive Spoilers ahead:

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     In issue 1 of The Veil, Torn Asunder we begin with our main character revealing his innermost desire. He says that that more than anything he wants the truth of his reality. The Truth above all.

 He confesses to us that he has been running away his whole life, hiding in drink, flesh and other assorted debauchery, and that he at one point even deserted from the army. These days when he isn't trying to find out the truth of existence in the musty old tomes of Yharnam's libraries he instead wanders its streets thinking about his past, frequently lingering on the moments after battle where the horrors surrounding him made him believe that there was no meaning and no truth to be found in life.

     But in contrast to this there is also another memory; a moment in his life where he witnessed a monster peering through a fracture in reality, and it is this improbable event that has in subsequent years come to seem more real than anything else. It is this that has spurred him on in his quest for the truth. And somewhere along the way to the end of the first issue he is given the Tarot reading which will guide the rest of the narrative.

     Now, though it might seem as if the Tarot deck doesn't have a place in Bloodborne, it of course does. In fact, the Tarot cards are in some way already present as The Caryll Runes, and there are pages and pages of discussion on the Bloodborne forums over which Tarot Card corresponds to which Caryll Rune, which ones don't fit or seem left out, but this is somewhat irrelevant as Ales Kot, for the purposes of this story, employs them only as they are originally used; as a guide which reveals some of what the future holds.

     The reading as it goes is: all upright; The Tower, the Moon, and in the end; the Star.

If you have any knowledge of Bloodborne at all, these cards will undoubtedly already summon up some associations, but again, this is not so much about what's already in place as it is about what Ales Kot makes of it. The Tower card traditionally means destruction, even though the tower here isn't ablaze. The Moon card signifies occluded things, deception and the hiding of truth. The Star points to enlightenment and contentment.

     Also, by the end of the issue the man has begun to come into contact with an entity that appears to manifest throughout various elements, both living and not. He smiles as he recognizes that this is some sort of echo of his vision beneath the water, a sign that shows him he's on the right track.

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     Issue 2 is appropriate for the Tower Upright as it is both about destruction and awakening, both figurative and, in this world that has layers of dreaming, very much literal. Though we don't know it yet, we start in echoes of the past, and then the man awakes inside a dream.

     The man finds himself on the streets of Yharnam, now clearly under the light of the Blood Moon, which means that the story and world have progressed ahead to the time when the game's protagonist is already tumbling down the rabbit-hole of insight, and stumbling around pants-less, is after a while confronted with a sight that will provoke a profound change in him.

     The Darkbeast Paarl and the One Reborn do battle.

It is interesting to note that in this issue that I have deemed the Tower card, the monster that shows up is the One Reborn who is most associated with the Tower Card on the forums, and that just like the tower in popular depictions of the card, he is struck by lightning, here present as the Darkbeast Paarl.

     And then something happens; the man seemingly disintegrates.

Now, it's very hard to understand the correct sequence of events of the Veil, Torn Asunder, because this moment, the start, the middle, and the aftermath, are spread out over the first 2 issues (and maybe also part of the third). Maybe this is because Ales Kot was too enamoured with the loose structure that Eileen the Crow's story provided and he wanted to use it here again, but I feel the story would've been better served with a more linear approach. Because unlike for Eileen in the Song of Crows, for the protagonist of The Veil, Torn Asunder, time only flows one way... or it should anyway.

     Upon witnessing the monsters the man's body disintegrates, or seems to disintegrate, burning up until only a familiar shape remains; an echo of the form first glimpsed in the water.

Metaphor and literal destruction both; the gaining of knowledge burns the man down, mind and body.

It's very hard to figure out how this could happen but it seems obvious that the key lies with the open-mouthed shape we have been seeing throughout the story. It is because of the nature of this entity that the man will gain the ability to cycle through various moments in the Bloodborne stories.

     As I have stated, this whole sequence is a dream, but the thing about dreams in the world of Bloodborne is that they aren't just dreams. They aren't less than the reality that engenders the dreaming. They are just other, different realities, pocket dimensions that can be slipped in and out of, given the right catalyst.

     Back in his room the man ponders, but the smell of shit and blood and stained sheets intrudes on his senses and he realizes that he needs to face reality. Issue 2 ends with whatever is left of the man's life in shredded tatters, blood coating the surface of the room he's in, and dripping from the edge of the razor he holds. His private story destroyed, now there's nothing to hold him back from his work, his quest for truth, and the only way left is the way forward.

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Issue 3 has as its Card the Moon, which is most commonly associated with deception and illusion,  and as we ended last issue with the destruction of his life, his story seemingly truncated in lovers' blood, and though he needs to face what is happening, because this is a character who has only ever run away from everything, he runs away again, and somehow he runs farther than he ever could have.

He becomes unmoored from his reality, and he becomes a witness to the burning of beasts in the streets of Yharnam.

He sees Hunters fighting the Cleric Beast.

He meets and talks with Eileen the Crow as she trudges trough the forest in A song of Crows.

He sees a Blood Moon over Byrgenwyrth and the streets of the Hypogean Gaol, and he sees the burning of Old Yharnam.

And he comes upon a scene of The Death of Sleep and shares a pity-filled look with the transformed child carried by the Nameless Hunter, who in this moment doesn't yet have the insight required to see both the madness around her, and in her arms.

But our protagonist does see the monsters. His insight in his reality has grown to such an extent that he can see the Elder Horrors that permeate his existence. Of course, given the Lovecraftian nature of the world of Bloodborne, madness walks hand in hand with the seeing, and so, he becomes truly unhinged. But you could also put it that since running away is what he does, what he's always done, he runs away from the knowledge he has gained and that he instead takes his refuge in insanity.

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And so we arrive at issue 4; The Star.

The Star is the card signifying spiritual enlightenment and contentment, and in the case of our main character it signifies the stage where he achieves his heart's desire; the attainment of his much sought-after ultimate truth.

     In the asylum our character lies, sheltered in insanity, having halted his quest for truth. But he is not the one to decide the direction nor the end of this story (or is he? Tum Tum Tum TUUUUUUM), and he is visited in his cell, first, by illusions seeking to perpetuate his private tale, then by the entity that has haunted him throughout the story, this time clothed in the skin of a dead man.

     The entity goads him on, and he is reminded of what knowledge means in the world of Blooborne, that it is gained by the seeing, and accumulation, of eyes, and he is told precisely what it means to cover those eyes up. 

     To be willfully blind in this universe is to choose to just be yet another in an innumerable succession of blind thralls, all in slave to an unfathomable design.

     It is at this point that the man begins to question what the entity wants from him specifically, why he has been pushed in a direction of the entity's design. He realizes that he himself has nothing to offer, nothing to say or reveal, no hidden knowledge to impart.

But then, intuitively, revelation dawns.

     Because of his unique point of view; a life lived, guided only by constantly running away, a constant escapism into anything but the thing he needs to confront, he understands the motivations of the unknown force that has guided him here. He understands that the only thing he's actually giving it is window to look through, a story to follow. Something to distract it from its own reality. He understands that there's nothing he really can offer, nothing except divertissement, and that all that he is, for this entity that dons dead men like clothes, is entertainment.

     At this point we realize that the narrative has become a Meta one, that it's been one all along, that the entity that keeps looking in on our protagonist is probably us, staring with open mouth at the horrors we witness, or that at the very least it is Ales Kot himself, the writer, trying to coax out a story out of a subject whose sole drive has been the discovery of the ultimate truth of his world. And problematic for both subject and writer, the ultimate truth that comes out of this, is that this particular revelation does not stop at the boundaries of the world of Bloodborne, and that it goes beyond its confines to make the audience, the world at large a part of the reveal. All of a sudden Yharnam has becomes a small place in quite a large tapestry.

The man realizes he is in a story, that he is a story and that the entity wishes him to continue on, to put on a show, as it were. But the man denies the formless watcher, and, not without some malice, acts according to his nature. He runs away again, by gauging out his eyes, and since this is Bloodborne, and eyes are here the symbol of knowledge, he takes away his knowing and the possibility of progress, and so denies the entity both the continuation and the conclusion to the story, who leaves and rears away from him.

Then, throughout this section Ales Kot, via our narrating protagonist, addresses us pretty much directly, berating us,for escaping into fiction, while all around us our world is being torn apart by awful forces. Take your pick: corruption, climate change, war, famine, pandemic, any and all, all these destructive forces and yet here we are, hiding away in our stories.

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"The truth is I spent my whole life running and called it conquest'."

A line from our protagonist that hits quite hard with me, a reader who doesn't venture outside much, adding books to my shelves only when I 'conquer' them, finish them. I constantly need to escape into stories, into fiction; books, comics, tv or games because I can not handle the world outside.
I read books, and I finish games, all to avoid interacting with the world. Behold my library and you can only glimpse but an inkling of the things my mind has seen. but the truth is that all I do is run away. Escapism rules supreme.

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A small thought here at the end. Part of a larger section that I scrapped because it didn't seem to add up the way I wanted, but there's a small chance there's something here anyway.

In this way it initially seems as if the Carryl runes did not actually have a place but it does bear noting that where in the previous 2 volumes (issues 5 to 12) the end of every issue was closed out by the same Caryll rune each time, and that in this volume every issue is instead closed out by another one: The Formless Oedon rune.

A secret symbol left by Caryll, runesmith of Byrgenwerth.

The Great One Oedon, lacking form, exists only in voice, and is symbolized by this rune.

Those who memorize it enjoy a larger supply of Quicksilver Bullets.

Human or no, the oozing blood is a medium of the highest grade, and the essence of the formless Great One. Both Oedon, and his inadvertent worshippers, surreptitiously seek the precious blood.

Could Formless Oedon be in the meta way suggested in the story, be the creators that work on the stories of Bloodborne. Could the shade with hollow mouth be a form taken on temporarily to work their will? The artist's will made /almost/ physically manifest?

The Hedge Knight

God damn, this one is good.

If you haven't already, go pick this one up.
And I'm saying that as someone who was completely disillusioned with Martin's world after how Game of Thrones ended. I didn't have any interest in reading any of Martin's other work, Ice and Fire or otherwise, but after deciding to give this one a go, still having it lying around in the shadows, drowning in dust, I'm again firmly of the opinion that Martin's writing is just simply stellar and that when he finally finishes the Song of Ice And Fire saga, it will easily wash away the bad taste of HBO's Game of Thrones.

But that's besides the point. The Knight of the Seven Realms trilogy of novellas, of which the Hedge Knight is but the first, take place a hundred years before the events of A song of Ice and Fire and though the story obviously takes place around certain very recognizable names and places, the stories themselves stand perfectly well on their own.

And even with the caveat that Martin still has story developments for Dunk and Egg planned, and that he'd like to get to them eventually, and that likely the story might end in a way that will be terrible for some of the characters, the Hedge Knight is still a story very much worth picking up.
And I gather that the other novellas, and their respective comic adaptations, continue that trend.

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Yes, obviously I know that this comic, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight are adapted from the Dunk and Egg novellas, but it's a different format, and so, just as comics might not be an acceptable medium for some, so might prose novels not be for others. Everyone can have their pick, and for me, right now, for a variety of reasons, of which time and a limited attention span are just two, this comic adaptation is my pick.

Boy, that's some disclaimer. Super defensive and everything. You'd think somebody said something, but really, nobody did.

Garth Ennis' A Walk Through Hell

 

Two FBI agents go missing in a Warehouse, and the SWAT-team sent in to check out the situation comes out bawling, refusing to go back in.

FBI agents Shaw and Mcgregor go in to find out where their friends have gone.

And then, in their van, in tears and in despair, the SWAT-team commits suicide.

In the warehouse, the two agents are faced with the darkness of their past, and as the world around them steadily becomes more horrible, the horrors without start to merge with the horrors within.

And worse is yet to come.

A Walk Through Hell is one of those comics that is very likely to rub some people the wrong way. If you're familiar with Garth Ennis that shouldn't really come as a surprise,

 as you'll know that this is what he does in most of his work: Violence, deviancy and sex, swearing and extreme gore; the man's actually put out most of those comics that I put on the top shelves, their sweaty red-and-pink pages deemed shocking enough to keep out of reach of the kids.
     Crossed, Preacher, Caliban, his run on Hellblazer; in these there's always some line being crossed, something that'll manage to shock and thrill all but the most hardened of readers. And since I am one of those, so when I need to get my kicks Garth Ennis' tends to be an interesting bet, if not a safe one.
     On top of that, his way of building-up a narrative and his method of structuring stories generally make for very good, and very enveloping reads, easily capable of letting the hours while away, leaving one completely absorbed in the unfolding story.

*BANG*

     A Walk Through Hell is pretty much like that; fascinating and shocking and a pretty good read, annoying in some places but still pretty forgivable there ( more on that below,) and if the comic does one thing wrong and it's a big one! it is that its ending is unmitigatededly bleak, kinda shit and pretty unsatisfying. I wasn't really expecting to be let down by Ennis as his stories tend to end really quite well.
     Despite its content and viciousness, even Crossed had a more hopeful ending, even though that ending was only good in the way of all in medias res endings everywhere, with the happy couple probably dying horribly a few minutes after the last lines or the last panels.

    But not so With a Walk Through Hell; it ends straight up horrible. That isn't anything new par Ennis of course, but at least usually, he brought us micro stories, snapshots of a greater horrible whole, that ended well within the bounds of that greater horrible whole. And that isn't the case here.

     It's a real bummer, as I went into this with high hopes and I really wanted to like this one, but this story isn't really one that stands on its own. It comes across more as reactionary, as an outlet for Ennis to rant against the state of our society, with a higher focus on the derailment of America. But it doesn't offer anything else hopeful on its own, some redeemable way forward, and this isn't too bad all by itself but what is bad is that this isn't a piece of art that satisfies in its own right.

Ennis probably should've sat on A Walk Through Hell's ideas a little longer as anything to do with the supernatural elements and the ideas at the heart of what is actually going on seem to be sound. I would have loved to see more of that. But the whole package is so much a product of its time that it can only be read with knowledge of American society's current ills, and it's worse as those ills have infected Ennis' tendency to craft satisfying endings. But then, this might just be the point. This isn't supposed to be satisfying. It's instead something that's supposed to alarm.
It is a warning: worse is yet to come, for all of us. Be wary, and be afraid, the world is about to shake.

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     And I should also mention why that some people are going to end up annoyed even if they aren't left cold by the ending: Though I wasn't really all that bothered there were some elements that were so in-your-face that it jarred me out of my immersion a few times. Ennis does satire pretty well in general, but here his point of attack wasn't much occluded by the choice of fantastical elements this time and instead he chose to put them front-and-center: Twitter, Trump, Racism, SJW zeitgeist, Gender Politics, and more. If that irritates you, then you just can't read this comic.

Icky October Book Haul

*BOOM*

     Told you this one'd be big, didn't I? Here it is then: The Massive October Book Haul! 

You'll notice that it is (almost) a nice mix between books and comics this time, and that pretty much all of it is horror except for a few fantasy titles and the obligatory Judge Dredd comic book.

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Let's start from the top, which is also immediately the book I'm reading right now: Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted, which is technically a collection of (or at least, the back-blurb says these are going to be) 23 short stories connected by an overarching narrative in which 18 or so wannabe writers answer an ad to go to an exclusive writer's retreat and who are then surprisingly locked in a building for three months. They're being treated alright, actually, but most of them wish that the situation was a bit more harrowing, and so pretty much all of them start to sabotage the group's supplies and their surroundings and, as a result, the situation quickly begins to become more dire than anticipated. Or at least I think so. I've only read a fourth of the book at this point.

     Palahniuk might be familiar to some of you. His big mainstream success came when his novel Fight Club got adapted by David Fincher. I watched the movie, became obsessed by it and eventually got around to also giving the novel a go. And honestly it was okay but on the whole I just preferred the movie. Palahniuk's writing style is one of those that goes in one ear and out the other, so to speak; nothing much sticks at the end except the idea that this is one man who doesn't like society much.

     And he's right of course, but that doesn't mean I want to read about it. Palahniuk's stories are infused with grime, with the baser elements of life and sex, and on the whole frequently comes off as mean-spirited. It's good for an outraged chuckle or two, but I still don't believe this is the type of literature that'll stand the test of time. Yuppie-infused capitalist nonsense of yesteryear. Kind of like American Psycho. And realizing that immediately makes me think that I might just be wrong about Palahniuk's books not withstanding the test of time.

At least the cover is glow in the dark, which is something.

I bought this one finally because I had it listed somewhere on the books I'd like to give to a friend, purely on hearsay, as the novel frequently tops best of lists in the horror category. So far it's been both hilarious and annoying, but no scares as of yet. Or even anything that one would constitute as horror reading, though I guess it does have a certain queasiness factor going for it.

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Next up, an overpriced novella, which I had to pay import taxes on for more than half the price of the book itself. 20 euros for 'formalities' on top of the 3.50 or so of actual income-tax... Modern Highway Robbery I tells you.

     This one'd better be good, is all I'm saying.

Don't know much about it except what the blurb told me, and that a writer who I still have an entire unread trilogy of lying around was the one who wrote it.

     So, a venture of about 50 euros for a huge big question mark of a story, written by an author you don't know anything about, Levi, what possessed you to do such a thing?

     Well, snooty reader, have a look at the blurb of the thing.

ENTER THE EXECRATION,

WHERE THE DAMNED AND THE DESPERATE

COME TO PRAY TO THE MAD GOD…

It is two hundred years since the deity known as the Absolved went mad and destroyed the Kingdom of Alnachim, transforming it into the Execration, a blasted wasteland filled with nameless terrors. For decades, desperate souls have made pilgrimage to the centre of this cursed land to seek the Mad God’s favour, their fate always unknown. 

Now a veteran warrior known only as Pilgrim, armed with a fabled blade inhabited by the soul of a taunting demon, must join with six others to make the last journey to the heart of the Execration. Allied with a youthful priest, a beast-charmer, a duplicitous scholar, an effete actor and two exiled lovers, Pilgrim must survive madness, malevolent spirits, unnatural monsters and the ever-present risk of treachery, all so that the Mad God might hear his prayer and, perhaps, grant redemption. But can sins such as his ever be forgiven? 

Set in a world where demons and gods walk the earth, A Pilgrimage of Swords is a dark and exciting fantasy adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of the Raven’s Shadow and Draconis Memoria trilogies. 

     Yeah, exactly.

I don't know about you, but I got some serious Hyperion-vibes from that.

     Mad Gods, a pilgrimage-type quest, demons, religion, darkness... Sounds bloody awesome!

And to be fair to the book's price tag: It does look quite nice. And it's limited too!

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     Yes, in the Book-Pile photo at the top you'll see that there's a few more books in there than I'm actually giving attention to, which in every case is because those individual books and comic books all have already had their time to shine in another of this month's posts. To whit: after I had read The Light is The Darkness, by Laird Barron, And which is in the picture up above, I immediately went ahead and ordered the short story collection I really should've picked up ages ago by now: The Imago Sequence.

     It arrived pretty quickly too, and I have begun reading it already, as I had a bit of waiting time at the doctor's today. It's immediately become clear that Barron's work is more inter-connected than I thought. Bare pages in, there are already organizations and names intimately connected with some of the elements in The Light is the Darkness novella. His protagonists also come across as pretty bad-ass, which is very much to my liking. Apparently this is called Hard-boiled.

The book  itself is actually the winner of the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards for Best Short Story Collection, so, you know, that sounds pretty cool. Even though I'm not one to put much stock in popular opinions, or jury-based decisions of any kind.

What an odd thing to say, no?

Almost as if there's more to say there...

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Next up; the latest Michael Fletcher novel.

I haven't read anything by him since Beyond Redemption, though I compulsively buy everything he puts out.

     I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm a compulsive reader, and a slow reader.

Which means that if the story isn't finished by the time I've read the first book in the series, I'm very likely to be side-tracked by other stuff, and in the end I usually don't go back to the series at all.

     Reading takes a lot of time for me. Which is why I just purchase the stuff I know I'll like when it comes out, and then wait for the series to be finished before I dive in.

It's a problematic and selfish position to take maybe. But I've been burned a few times too many to look further than my own capabilities on this one.

     The one idea that informs all of my thinking on this is that there is so much good stuff to read still, and 95 percent of which has been finished decades ago, if not generations ago, and it's whole and complete and guaranteed to satisfy.

     Read the world's classics, for God's sake people. Stop diving into the very next buzz-worthy thing. Half the stuff you're reading right now will not last a decade. There's too many writers out there right now, and most of them don't add much to the art.

But if you find one you really like, you should stick with them.

Michael Fletcher is my one thing.

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So then, on to comics!

First up is the latest Junji Ito manga hardback, which now completes my Junji ito Horror Library.

Though I guess I could still buy the Dissolving Class Room manga, if I really crave some horror manga, but it isn't likely.

Manga is very miss with me, and barring Berserk and 2 of Ito's stories, almost never a hit.

I loved Uzumaki, or at least the concept of the thing itself, but there were elements that just couldn't help coming across as silly, the whirlwind-flyers for one (boy, was that stupid...), but there is a certain draw to these things anyway. And I'm of the opinion that one should probably go and explore the top of each art form one comes across. And the top in Horror Manga is Junji Ito.

But if I'm very honest, I'm happy that I can close this particular chapter of Manga exploration quite soon. It might just not be my thing entirely.

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Here's the last Hellboy trade ever.

Hopefully.

What can I say about this one that won't drip with annoyance and ill will?

     Hellboy was such a great character and had some really damn good stories, and it all went to shit when the BPRD went and became their own thing. Storylines that would've worked fine in the hands of Mignola himself went to other writers and artists, and it almost never worked. This is my opinion of course. I'm sure most people love the BPRD storylines but I have come to actively loathe them.

     And here then, in Ragna Rok, is the story that's supposed to end 25 years of storytelling, and a whole universe worth of comics and properties. And it just sucks.

It's all so rushed that it actively pissed me off.

     What's bizarre though is that it does get really really good there at the end, you know, when Mignola's the one doing the drawing. And even I have to admit that it's really one hell of a way to end the series. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything done like this before.

     But does it work though?

I really liked those 5 final pages. But when they were done, I felt just kind of deflated, and disinterested. Some of these characters got such a raw deal, and the landscape is just unrecognizable.

     I suppose the name of the game is that this really has become an almost alien world now, and that humanity's day has drawn to a close. And my beef isn't that 'I can't identify with this' or something, no. Hell no. Fuck humanity, kill them all.

     No, I loved the fact that this was an unstoppable apocalypse and all. But it felt just so hollow, so rushed and poorly executed. You gave the annoying plague of Frogs 14 trade paperbacks of story, Hell on Earth got 15, and the Apocalypse itself only gets 3 trades, and when Hellboy shows up to finally do the thing he's been having to do since issue 1 and then you don't even make him feel like Hellboy?

     No. My guess is that somebody got tired of the whole thing, and it all needed to be wrapped up as soon as possible.

     The problem with this is that there's no desire for pre-quels or spin-offs either. I was reading Crimson Lotus and I was wondering why I was doing so. There was build up here for the grand finale, and it annoyed me, because the grand finale itself ultimately had proved itself to be disappointing. It was all pointless. Ugh.

Man, I have a lot of annoyance and anger on this one. Might eventually come back to it, but on the whole, I'd rather just forget about Hellboy right now.

 Moving on.

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     Here is one I am very much curious about. 

There's something abstract about these covers, something that teases without even showing anything.

There's black, blue and 3 spots of red in a scene that just screams that there's something going on here, but because we're so far away there's also a sense of peace and quiet about it. Some sort of hidden darkness.

     And then the highly suggestive title, somehow connected with that pitch black warehouse door... this one looks very, very enticing.

     Somehow I've been able to keep completely spoiler-free on this one. I solely picked it up based on the name of the comic itself, the writer associated with it and the kind of art-style that the cover has. There's no guarantee that this one'll be good, but at the very least the whole series, 12 issues in total, has been collected between these two trades.

I'm itching to dive in.

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Here it is finally.

Terminal Diagnosis.

This is likely Harry Absalom's final outing.

He'll likely die here, though I hope not, but if he can give a good poke in the eye of the powers that be I'll be more than happy either way. Hopefully there'll also be some more hints to Gordon Rennie's Cabbalistics universe, which there was a playful reference to in one of the earlier Absalom volumes.

The story's one that the groundwork's been laid for in the previous Absalom stories:

To keep him in line, the forces of Hell have kidnapped and imprisoned Harry's grandchildren and put them in 'The Mills', and now, with Harry's final days approaching as his much-stalled cancer is taking the last chunks out of his system, he's putting a team together to get his grandchildren back.

I'm gonna miss the old bugger.

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Another one from the pages of 2000AD.

Tales of Telguuth collects the comic adaptations of Steve Moore's Telguuth short stories, and as I've read about a third of it now I can already say that I'm going to go and get the Tales of Telguuth collection from Strange Attractor Press as well. These tales are dark, and nasty, and pretty unique as well. Sorcery, Gods and monsters, and some tits thrown in for good measure. The artwork is gorgeous and pretty similar across all the tales in here, which is perfect for someone like me who can't stand it if the art veers between too different styles. 

Now, I've read a bunch of sword and sorcery stuff but there's a very strange taste to these stories, and I can very well understand why the most often used adjective to describe them is 'perverse'. It isn't exactly that but the word does seem to sum it up best, as they all seem to end badly for their main characters, and pretty much every time there's a sick delight in watching this unfold. 

I recommend you pick this one up.

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Dreddy's number 24 outing.

It's been pretty good. Not much to say though.

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I do have a lot to say about this one.

Note the paws?

     I've already read three chapters, and though the edition featured above is gorgeous of course, and quite hefty, though not heavy, I was a bit on the fence about recommending the Top Shelf edition of From Hell as I thought there wasn't any introduction or explanatory piece in here, but last night I discovered the appendices at the back of the book and: ehh... maybe there's not even a need for an introduction?

     Well, let me put it this way.

There's this bit in BBC's Luther where a girl is reading a comic book, and Luther asks her what she's doing, and she responds with, "I'm reading a Graphic Novel", and Luther scoffs and says, "Call it what is, it is a comic book, I don't know why the youth always have to pretend that things are bigger than what they are. Go read a real book, might do you some good", or something. There's a lot of disdain there for this idea of wanting to call comic books graphic novels, as if that can 'legitimize' an art form that's pretty much just dumb entertainment to the people that love reading actual novels.

     This pretty much was my position as well, for the longest time, and when I began reading comics I always called them comics, but From Hell has made me realize that you just can't call this thing a comic book; In some ways it IS a novel, and if you go into this one expecting to breeze through it you're gonna fall flat on your face. And the funny thing is that when I tried to think of other comic books one should be calling graphic novels the only ones I could come up with (and that I'd read) were those that had also been written by Alan Moore: V for Vendetta, Providence (though not Neonomicon), and From Hell.

     So what's the difference, why are some of these 'higher' than others?

I guess it's about what's in it, behind it, what brought the thing about.

Anyone can tell a story (though not really), but what I'm trying to say is that this one is of a different class than anything else in comics. When I look at it, I just can't understand that anyone crafted it. It is whole and complete, exactingly pre-determined and then meticulously executed. It's laborious and perfect. There's so much that's in it, that it can not have done anything other than consume the artists working on it, and From Hell did do that of course. Moore came out of this one a changed man.

     Anyway There's over 40 pages of notes in here, indicating which elements have been fictionalized and which elements came about by research and speculation, and it's dense and quite heavy to read. And it almost obviates the need for an introduction.

Here's the girl that those paws belong to.

Saffy's got a good home, let me tell you, and she knows.

Oh yeah, I can recommend the Top Shelf edition.

I'm going to take it slow reading this one, as it really is quite a lot to digest.

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And here's the last book on the pile: the American Vampire Omnibus.

Strangely, there's no news on omnibus 2 even though the story isn't completely collected in here.

There simply might not be enough issues to constitute a new volume but I'd like one anyway, even if it's half the size of this one.

Nothing to say about this one either really, as I'm going to hold off reading until at the very least I have the whole series in one form or another.

Oofh, I'm exhausted now.