Paper Cuts – The Horror Writers

Papercuts: A Passage In Black

Papercuts: A Passage In Black

By Ryan “HB” Mount

**Spoiler Free Review**

As the fall approaches and the cool air fills the night, we all start to think about what lies ahead. For many, Halloween is around the corner and horror movies begin to dominate our watching experiences. However, this year, the best scary stories won’t be on film, but will be told on black and white pages. That is because author, Cullen Bunn, releases his newest work, A Passage In Black.

Cullen Bunn may be most known for his works in comics. Currently he is writing Marvel’s X-Men, but has been working in comics for years not only at Marvel, but also at DC, Oni, and Darkhorse. However, he is no stranger to the horror genre as he is currently writing Harrow County which perhaps has the title of best ongoing horror comic being currently published.

A Passage in Black is collection of 27 short stories, which include 8 brand new, never published tales and 19 previously only available in small press.

If you are like me and grew up on Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, you have been wanting to more of these tales since your childhood and every time there is mention of reviving the series or bringing it to screen, you scream in delight. If you are like me, then you know it has been awhile as well. And A Passage in Black fills that similar of itch of feeling terrified one moment and grossed out in another, whether by words or haunting imagines.

The themes of the tales are all over the place. There are stories if old women in the woods, cannibals in the country, and ghost children who come out in the rain. There are also completely absurd chapters than include mutant testicles and killer frogs. No matter your brand of horror, there are stories that you will enjoy.

Not only will you enjoy the actual stories, but Bunn gives readers a peak behind the horror show curtain. At the conclusion of most stories, Bunn lets the readers in on his inspirations behind them. Sometimes, it’s about a pond near his childhood home and other times it all started with one line or one small concept. While, some may wish to not know, you can read them as if you were watching directors commentary on a movie. It is not for everyone, but I will say, after reading “Cold Snap” I was glad to have it there as it may have been the scariest one in the world for me, a soon to be father and Bunn himself shares those reservations after writing it.

While A Passage In Black is certainly not a graphic novel, the book does include 23 illustrations to accompany most of the stories. These are certainly reminiscent in style to the Scary Stories, the art from Tim Mayer is the perfect pairing. All the illustrations are black and white and scratchy which gives it an unfinished look. The unfinished style is like looking at the difference of a brand-new home versus one that is decaying and run-down. It tonally made sense for the book and will help give you nightmares if you are reading before bed.

I promised to keep this review spoiler-free, so any more information would lessen the absolute joy I had while reading A Passage In Black. It is very hard to compare this full length book to what we normally review for this column, but this was the absolute best work I have read since launching the column.

This is a must own for any real horror fan.

A Passage in Black will be released THIS FRIDAY, October 6th from OmahaBound.com There will be 100 limited edition hard covers available there or head over to amazon.com and order a paperback copy.

I implore everyone to order their copy.

And please check out the other works by the wonderful work from Cullen Bunn at cullenbunn.com and follow him on twitter at @cullenbunn. You can find Tim Mayer’s work over at timmayerart.com . And an additional thank you to Tim Benson at OmahaBound, who got this into my hands, and make sure to follow him on twitter @TBRAMBLIN to see all the great projects he has going on.

And if it was not obvious…

Ratings: 5 out of 5 (actually, can I give a 6 out of 5?)

If you like what you read, make sure to like it and share it on all your social media platforms. If you want to suggest a book to review, make sure to tweet at me @hebruise . Make sure to follow me and check out all my comics work at horror-writers.com (@horror_writers) and over at twoheadednerd.com (@twoheadednerd)

Papercuts: The Eyrie

Papercuts: The Eyrie

By Ryan “HB” Mount

The Eyrie is an independent horror comic from creator/writer Thom Burgess and art by Barney Bodoano. The tale is one of a troubled photographer, enters into a creepy British town and creepiness ensues.

The overall story telling was well done and while not on a level of modern Scott Snyder horror tale like Severed, but compared to current horror anthology comics, it stands up and is on par. Most of the heavy lifting is done with Bodoano’s art, but Burgess does a good job of crafting a complete short story. Burgess does a good job collaborating with Bodoano and letting the art tell his tale without a lot of over narration. While not flawless, the dialogue comes across authentic.

Artist Barney Bodoano style seems to be clearly influenced by horror comic legend Richard Corben. It also is very reminiscent of the young adult horror books, Scary Stories. There is a lot to like about the art, but it is also very unpolished. There is a ton of incredible pencil work happening in each panel with plenty of scratch line work. Our main character in the story is full of emotional beats brought on by the art. The monsters created for this tale are simply wonderful and would fit perfectly into any classic horror tales from EC Comics or even Marvel and DC’s 1970’s run of comics.

The art is also delivered in a very simple grid panel layout. While not always a bad thing when done extremely well, in this context it was unimaginative for a tale that could have benefited from more sprawling panels and spreads. There are also some very weird perspectives throughout the book in those panels. The final critique would be on the hands of “normal humans.” While the elongated hands of the monsters worked in this story, there was a struggle to have professional and proportional hands throughout most the book. It was a very Rob Liefeld feet type of problem with the art, however, being this is an independent book, I am more forgiving of an artist still working out his style onto the pages.

Overall, Bodoano does a good job of carrying the story, setting the scene, and delivering some creepy atmosphere and monsters. While the art is not perfect, compared to monthly books being put out by Xenescope and Action Labs/Danger Zone, I’d rather read books like The Eyrie which are a labor of love and real effort being put into them.

While much of the focus of comics is focused on the writing and art, there are a lot of other components that go into a comic. One of these key components is the lettering. It may go unnoticed in a lot of issues, so when it stands out, it typically is because of incredible skill to weave it into the art or because it is jarring and bogs down the story telling. While no official lettering credit is given to the issue, art is credited to Barney Bodoano, we will assume that he had full control of this portion. Overall, the lettering was a very mixed bag through the issue. There were many times in this issue where it really felt that the lettering was a complete afterthought. It felt like copy and pasted into panels or simply shoved into them. While the placement was questionable, the execution of the lettering was proficient.

Overall, any fans of black and white horror comics should give The Eyrie a read. It has creepy and haunting art and a well plotted and told horror tale.

Ratings: 3 out of 5

Papercuts: Marvel’s Chamber of Chills

Papercuts: Chamber of Chills from Marvel Comics

By Ryan “HB” Mount

In the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s DC Comics was not the only producer of many horror genre comics. Marvel seemed to be in an arms race against DC with the amount of horror comics they were producing at the exact same time.

Chamber of Chills was just one of Marvel’s titles and it was published from November 1972 through November 1976 and ran for 25 issues.

Much of these books remain uncollected and unavailable digitally, making the only way to consume these titles is visiting your local comic shops and searching back issue bins or tracking them down online.

Chamber of Chills #1 (Marvel)

This was a heck of a first issue.

First issues are always difficult. Typically, it is either a cold opening with just enough to grab onto or on the other side of the spectrum, it is an info dump and ruins a series before it event gets started. Well then, how do you start an anthology series that has no overarching story thread and give readers enough to want to come back for the second issue? This issue solves that quandary.

It was hand curated by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas in a true collaborative effort.

Out first tale might have been the most straight forward tale of Werewolves with a very specific twist. The turn was so great, that to this day, I have not seen it been used in any other interpretation of Werewolves.

The second tale was written by Stan Lee himself. For a man known for his fantastical tale, this was a very dark, reality based commentary on the prison system. It was the darkest tale of the three. Stan was certainly playing with his narrative style as most panels were surrounded by dialogue which may have been perceived as over writing but the last panel makes it all come together and deliver a crushing blow.

The final tale was clearly to appease Roy Thomas who spent much of his career introducing sword and sorcery tales into the Marvel Universe. However, the actual tale was written by Gerry Conway, another great comic writer of the 1970’s. The story was mainly one of a barbarian, but with modern day consequence.

It is clear that the further most horror anthology series are published, the quality begins to dip and rely more and more on reprints, but this first issue was simply spectacular.

Each tale was very well written and the art complimented it well. While there was no top notch artists listed on the creation of this book, they all did their best with workman style art that still holds up over time, perhaps more than even those of newer generations.

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

Chamber of Chills #2 and #3 (Marvel)

Issue #2 contained two very different tales of Vampires. One in the Old West and another millions of years into the future. Hard to image back to back tales featuring similar monsters being compelling, but one was more of a cursed story and the other one felt like the original Alien film, only the aliens were vampires. The third story was another Roy Thomas influenced tale of sword and sorcery which may not entirely fit the genre, but would certainly appeal to a larger audience.

Issue #3 may have contained less sword and sorcery, but ventured into adventure genre comics with a horror bent for the first tale. The real gem of this book was “All the Shapes of Fear.” Written by George Effinger and art by Don Heck, it clearly took place during then present day and had the artwork to match. However, it was one of those haunting tales with a tale of redemption and if you can find this issue in the wild, might be worth picking up. It may be one of my favorite anthology style stories featured in any comics.

Ratings: 4 out of 5

Chamber of Chills #4 (Marvel)

The main highlight of this book, was that one story contained very early artwork of comic book legend, Howard Chaykin. While it was done in a style of that time and looks much different than modern era Chaykin, it still had elements that he uses today. Each character has his signature strong chins and was already drawing very seductive and sultry women into his work.

If you are a fan of Howard Chaykin, this issue may be worth tracking down just to be able to see his early starting points. While the overall issue was fine, filled with weird and interesting tales, his artwork began to stand out even back then.

Ratings: 3.5 out of 5

Chamber of Chills #5-#7 (Marvel)

Issue #5 marked the beginning of the reprints for the series. The issue contained four total stories, with three being new and one tale a reprint of a previous pre-comic code story. The unfortunate part of the reprint is that there was no credit given to the artist or the writer in the book. Also, given that it was surrounded by modern storytelling, it really stood out amongst the issue and not necessarily in a good way.

Issue #6 was three more tales, with two new stories at the beginning and the final tale one being a reprint. This issue overall felt fresher than #5.

Issue #7 was fine, but it already seemed like this was the end, even though there were 18 more issues to be printed, the remarkable care and thought put into issue #1 seemed long gone.

Ratings: 3 out of 5

After the publication of #7, #8 began to be all reprints of older materials. And #7 also happens to be the last issue that was available immediately. Overall, I think if you are a fan of Marvel from the 1970’s this should be a series you track down. If you want to see where modern horror anthologies really started to take their shape, I’d also recommend these first 7 issues.

If you like what you read, make sure to like it and share it. Follow me on twitter @hebruise and let me know what you liked, what you did not, which horror books you are into and your suggestions to be reviewed!

Papercuts: Horror Classics from DC Comics

Papercuts: Horror Classics from DC Comics

By Ryan “HB” Mount

In the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s DC Comics was producing a large amount of horror based comics, even in the comics code era. Most famously, they had works like House of Secrets where readers were introduced Swamp-Thing. While there was the couple of series like House of Mystery that endured, there were a lot more that most current readers may overlook like Tales of the Unexpected and Ghosts. Also, interesting about of this period, is how few collections were and are available of all these titles. There were a couple of Showcase Editions of some titles, which were low-cost, newsprint, black and white reprints. Even now, with digital comics, most of these runs have yet to make it onto the digital platform for current readers to enjoy.

Papercuts has traditionally been focused more on current and ongoing books. There are many reasons for that. One, very simply is because they are the easiest books for readers to check out after the reviews have been posted. So, if you like what is reviewed this week, make sure to visit your local comic shop and go through the back issue and dollar bins and see what haunting surprises wait for you!

The Witching Hour #30 (DC)

Published: April 1972

The Witching Hour ran from 1969 until 1978 and has an incredible run of 85 issues.

After reading this issue, this series was the most inventive book of the books I looked at this week. Mainly due to the art found throughout the entire book. While there was still a lot of traditional panel work, there was a lot of panel breaking and bleeding. There were some pages that did away with traditional grids and put nearly no borders on entire pages.

There are several tales throughout the issue, but the best two are “Night Fright” and “The Box.” Night Fright is the tale of a young couple and an attacker and due to lack of any supernatural elements, was extremely creepy and believable that could have happened to anyone, especially in that time. The Box was fantastic because it was a one page story that told a complete story, with a twist ending, and incredibly dark in nature and subtly political in today’s contexts.

If given the chance to read any one of these series, completely though, I would certainly start with this one due to the mixture of natural and supernatural horror and interesting art choices.

Ratings: 4 out of 5

Weird Mystery Tales #14 (DC)

Published: November 1974

Weird Mystery Tales ran from August 1972 until November 1975 and had a moderate run of 24 issues which by today’s standards would be a huge success.

The art again was another simple grid layout and overall the art might not stand out with any unique voices, but these were all professional artists working on each story. When comparing a horror anthology of today versus this one, I’d say the skill level of the artists working back then on even a lower tier book, far surpasses the horror niche books being put out today by a lot of publishers and even perhaps a higher quality than a lot of Big 2 books on the stands today. While it is not crisp and as neatly printed as today’s comics, the craft is still great to read.

The title does a great job of letting readers know exactly what is in store. Each tale is a mystery, some more obvious than others, but all told with the reader asking themselves what is really going on here in terms of the mystery, which is solid story telling.

Ratings: 3 out of 5

Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #14 (DC)

Published: October 1972

According to Wikipedia, Forbidden Tales of the Dark Mansion started under the title of The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love for the first four issues.

The series ran from September 1971 through March 1974, but only produced 15 total issues in three years.

The most notable feature of this book that it features early Howard Chaykin art. While it is fun to see where he started, this is still a long way from modern Chaykin with his heavy lines and square jaws.

While after the name change, it was said to have been a departure from the romance angle, this book is still a romance book with horror and supernatural elements. Every story in this book dealt with relationships one way or another and it sets itself apart from the other horror titles.

Ratings: 3.5 out of 5

Secrets of Haunted House #9 (DC)

Published: January 1978

Secrets of Haunted House ran from May 1975 until March 1982 and had a fantastic run of 46 issues, just 4 issues short of what today is the marker for fantastic indie books.

If seeking variety with horror anthologies, this appears to the title to explore a vast variety of subject material. Everything from ghosts and vampires to androids in the future. If there was a way to put The Twilight Zone story telling into comics, Secrets of Haunted House, comes the closest.

The art is extremely basic with its simple four to six panel grids on nearly every page. With such a simple style, this book hopefully leaned on the story telling to keep issue fresh for its long run. Perhaps that is why the variety of tales in this book was all over the map in subject matter.

Ratings: 3.5 out of 5

Next time on Paper Cuts: Horror Classics from the vault of Marvel!

Papercuts: 05.28.2017

Papercuts: 05.28.2017

By Ryan “HB” Mount

Blood Blister #2 (Aftershock)

Issue #1 of Blood Blister was twisted, gross, and a perfect start to a creepy story.

Issue #2 was the definition of a sophomore slump and a bit of a letdown in comparison.

The art overall had a very different feel overall. It had too much black ink covering up Tony Harris’s typically wonderful art and dampened the enjoyment of this issue.

The story telling in this issue also seemed to be very chaotic and found myself turning back a couple pages to see if there was something missed. I do not mind non-linear storytelling, but this felt almost frantic and disjointed. And at the end of it, the plot and character development seemed to crawl forward if at all.

Overall, knowing Phil Hester and Tony Harris are some of comics best creators, this issue feels like a disappointment, but due to issue #1 being so incredibly strong, despite this issue, readers should continue to check out this series, especially those who love the body horror genre.

Ratings: 2.5 out of 5

Underwinter #3 (Image)

This comic is not going to be for everyone and that is okay. This appears to be a series that people are either going to love or hate.

The art is very, VERY, lose. It is a mixture of simple pencils and watercolors with no real definition and very little texturing. Seeing an artist pencil lines in a main stream comic is not something I want to see all the time but found it to be a treat for this series. Overall because the art is so loose and sparse, it challenges the reader to put the story together and makes it feel more like interpreting a painting than reading a comic.

The story is rather simple, one of a group of dysfunctional and struggling classical musicians given a chance to perform under strange circumstances and something darker and evil guiding them. The first issue was the introduction to the players and their employer, and the second issue took a deeper dive into character development. This plot was nearly loose as the art on issue #3 and now that we know the characters and what they are doing, something is happening to them for the worse.

Ray Fawkes is the creator, writer, and artist and deserves to be commended for pushing boundaries of the comics medium and still offering up a compelling story.

Ratings: 4 out of 5

Plastic #2 (Image)

Writing a compelling serial killer as a main character is not always easy, but works like Lady Killer over at Darkhorse and TV’s Dexter that you can write a character who is normal in all other aspects other than their night activities and have it be compelling.

Writing a deranged, unhinged lead character is often a struggle. They often turn into humor pieces like Marvel’s Deadpool. Or worse yet, Marvel’s newest attempt to give Bullseye his own solo series that ended up being humorous for the wrong reason or lackluster at best.

Yet, in Plastic #2, Doug Wagner gives us the story of a man, off his rocker, obsessed with plastic and his blow-up girlfriend and are invested in a character that in the wrong hands would be a disaster. Without having to state a code of ethics for the character, Wagner works with artist Daniel Hillyard to show that he is not out to kill everyone for the sake of killing, but there is a method, although not completely understood method to his madness.

Hillyard’s art has simple line work and is cartoony, but helps keep the story from being too dark and creepy. There is an overall lightness that comes from his human expressions that works perfectly.

Ratings: 4 out of 5