Number 72 - Pretty Deadly Vol 1 - Deconnick/Rios

 

This was a bit of a punt from me just because of that remarkably cheap price tag (for a graphic novel) and the rather nice artwork on the cover.

It turns out it was a good choice.

The quality of the art and storytelling on display here really shows up how basic the Outcast volumes are in almost every aspect.  It's like comparing Ramsey Campbell's prose to Guy N Smith. 

The Outcast volumes are still entertaining, but they certainly don't qualify as art in the way that this does.

 This is a multi-layered, complex narrative, mixing weird western with high fantasy and magic realism. It's reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's work on the Sandman comics, but transplanted to the old west with an increased level of violence and nudity.

The story is narrated by a butterfly talking to a dead rabbit (opening two pages of each issue cover these two as they lope around the countryside and its curiously charming - the rabbit's naivety is rather funny)  and follows our lead characters in a dramatic chase across the wild west - one of whom is the actual daughter of Death. 

Initially a little confusing, as the details of the story fall into place it becomes an epic fantasy encompassing the nature of Death itself as at least one of its central themes. This will stand up to multiple reads. Knowing the full detail of what happens later will almost certainly give a different perspective on the earlier chapters. It's always good when a writer trusts to the patience of the reader and doesn't give the whole story in one dollop in order to make i easier to understand from the start.

The artwork is stunning throughout.  This might be one of the prettiest sagas of death and vengeance ever committed to paper. 

I've commented a few times in the outcast reviews about the artwork not being great,  This book brings into sharp focus how bad the art can be in Outcast.  

I'm definitely going to pick up the other two volumes of this. Storytelling of this quality doesn't happen often.  As cheat reads go, this is pretty damned good. 

Number 71 - The Gulp - Alan Baxter

 Stephen King has Castle Rock, Charles Grant had Oxrun Station, Ray Bradbury had Green Town Illinois, Ramsey Campbell has Brichester, Josh Malerman has Goblin,,, the history of the fictional creepy town where weird things happen is long and distinguished. 

The latest to join the list is Gulpepper, an out of the way coastal town in Australia with only one road out and a habit of swallowing visitors who stay too long. And too long can mean just a single night if you don't listen to advice.

As a result of this habit, it's known to the locals as The Gulp. It's the setting for this rather excellent collection of novellas by Alan Baxter.  

As regular readers of this blog will know, I raved highly about his novella The Roo (what's not to love about a 9 foot demonic killer kangaroo rampaging through small town Australia) and was equally impressed by his (entirely differently styled) novella The Book Club. 

I'm glad to say he's kept up the same high standards as those other books.  As you might guess from the cover, this book contains five stories set in the eponymous town.

Story 1 - Out on a Rim - I do love a good punny title and this certainly qualifies in that.  A pair of delivery drivers are stuck overnight in the town when they damage the wheel rim on their truck. The older driver sensibly chooses to stay in the cab.  The younger driver (Rich) decides to explore. This allows Baxter to introduce us to several important locations and characters which then recur in the other stories. Suffice to say, we get a very good taste of what is to come - including at least one scene that truly made me wince.  Also, we find out exactly how bad an idea it was for Rich to ignore the advice to stay in the cab.

Starting with a visitor exploring the town is an overused trope generally but Baxter does it so well here that I really don't care. If you want an object lesson in how to introduce your location and important characters, this is a great example. 

Story 2 - Mother in Bloom - Two teenage siblings fail to dispose of their dead mother's body in the most spectacular and unexpected way. What starts as a straightforward "how do we get rid of her so we keep the house" story rapidly turns into a surreal and gruesome nightmare. I don't want to say too much about this one.  It needs to be read cold for full impact. I bloody loved it though.

Story 3 - The Band Plays On - A group of back-packers make the mistake of staying with a local band when they're invited to the after-party. Again, I can't say too much for fear of spoilers.  The atmosphere is superbly built in this tale as Patrick steadily realises that something beyond their control is happening. Can he save himself and his friends? Will they want to be saved? A refreshing take on an old monster archetype.

Story 4 - 48 to go - After a drugs runner is robbed, his boss who we met in earlier stories orders him to refund the $60k in 48 hours or face the consequences. He learns of the one place locally where he might stand a chance of raising so much so quickly... This leads to an escalation of violence which is shocking, extreme and funny in equal measures. 

Story 5 - the Rock Fisher - A young man's life is changed for the Lovecraftian after he catches... something... on his early morning fishing trip. This story has stronger ties with the rest of the book, including some unexpected consequences from events in the earlier tales. This one builds brilliantly, but I wasn't a hundred percent convinced by the ending. It's only a minor quibble though and doesn't spoil the book.  

Baxter achieves the holy grail of storytelling that is creepy, graphic and laced with a demonic strain of jet black humour throughout. You could argue that there's a lack of originality when you look deeply at a couple of the stories, but there's enough general weirdness going on that it all feels fresh and new in any case. It's so well written that total originality is the last thing we're looking for.

The Easter eggs that build between the tales till they become an integral part of the final story are a joy to look out for. 

This book is a total blast from start to finish.  Any horror fans who haven't picked up an Alan Baxter book need to do it ASAP.  This is a great place to start.

Number 70 - Outcast Vol 7

 Now this is frustrating.  I checked in Forbidden planet when I went into town last week and the Outcast comic is still running and on issue 47 or thereabouts. This volume incorporates issues 37-42.  Therefore vol 8 isn't out for a considerable time. 

And this finished on one hell of a cliffhanger. 

The story is good fun, it's keeping up the standards of earlier volumes.  Problem is the artwork is barely functional in places.  there's an occasional really good full page spread, but in general the artwork seems to have really slumped in the last couple of volumes.

Now I need to decide whether to pick up the comics to continue the story...

Number 69 - The Discomfort of Evening - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

 

This was this month's book group read. It's a debut novel so I had no idea what to expect.  Max Porter has very prominent quotes on the front and back covers so I wasn't expecting anything ordinary.

I wasn't expecting anything quite as bleak and utterly disturbing as this.  It may not be marketed as such, but this is the definition of character based psychological horror.

It's told from the point of view of Jas, a young girl who, aged 10, wishes for her brother to die instead of her rabbit.  He promptly dies in a skating accident on the river and the family shatters.  It was dysfunctional before, but with the death of Matthies, the total disintegration of the family unit sets in.

Jas has a very distinctive voice.  It's one you will either love or hate.  With the exception of a few observations that seem wise beyond her years and education level, it's actually quite a convincing  10 (and then 12) year old voice. It switches mid paragraph to a semi-related topic and back again on a regular basis, much in the same way that young children distract themselves from telling stories all the time. 

This can be a bit wearing and means you need to concentrate to follow the book in places.  It's not an easy read for that reason, or for the subject matter. This book made me feel more uncomfortable than anything else I've read since starting this blog. It goes to some very dark and nasty places.  Be warned that this is not for the faint hearted.

The book feels almost medieval despite the references to Google and Pokemon.  The old fashioned rituals of the family seem to actively combat the aspects of the modern world that appear.

The ending is traumatic.  I knew it wasn't likely to have a Hollywood-happy ending, but I didn't predict quite how deep into the pit of despair it was capable of going. The final chapters will be seared into my memory whether I want them there or not.

This book deserves to be read in as few sittings as possible.  Because the style takes a few pages to adjust to every time you pick it up, the steady accumulation of atmosphere is always lost when you put it down and pick it up hours later.  The longest reading sessions I had with this novel achieved levels of intensity I normally only dream about finding in a book. I wish I'd managed more of the long sessions.  I probably wouldn't have had the problems with the book that I had.

There are still some plot details that don't hang straight with me, but I can't really say what they are without leaving spoilers and this book is too good to do that to. 

Overall the positives outweigh the negatives.  I think this is the single most disturbing thing I've read in years and that - for me - is a good thing.  The writer wasn't aiming at giving us a comfortable read and they succeeded in not doing that.  I await their next book with distinct trepidation.

Number 68 - Tales From The Darkside - Hill & Rodrigues

 

Now this was a fun read.

Back in the mid 2010s, Joe Hill was asked to produce scripts for a revival of the old Tales From the Darkside TV show.  He wrote a selection of stories, and I believe they even filmed the pilot, but the network decided not to run with it.

The scripts have been adapted here for graphic novel purposes and illustrated by the illustrator for Locke and Key.  So the dream team of Hill and Rodrigues is reunited.

The producers were fools.  If they’d gone ahead with the series, based on the strength of these opening stories, it would have been an amazing show.

Hill has taken the basic idea of the anthology show and added to it. And I must say I think his plan, from the evidence here, was definitely touched by genius. The shows would have been linked in a very clever way.

In this book we have what would have been the first three stories for the TV show. 

In story 1 – Sleepwalkers – our lead character is an ex-lifeguard who was so engaged to his nightlife that he fell asleep at his post and allowed a woman to drown.  He finds himself at the centre of a Darkside event. A mysterious stranger appears to him and starts to warn him but falls asleep when he looks him in the face.  From that point on, everyone who sees him instantly falls asleep. This tends to lead to complications in life. Since this is only short, these complications aren’t explored as much as they could be, but it could have felt dragged out and repetitive if it had been any longer.  He gets his shot at redemption by the end of the story.

The second story, Black Box – introduces us to Brian Newman, the stranger in the first story.  We learn his backstory and the rather cool if convoluted reason he appeared and disappeared in the first story.  This is the longest story of the three and took up two issues of the original comic. This story more than hints at an ongoing backstory for the sadly defunct tv show.

The third story is batshit crazy.  A traditional enough concept - babysitter looking after demon kids.  The kids in this case have tablets that allow them to control the reality around them, allowing them to set assorted monsters on our beleaguered heroine and her boyfriend. The artwork in this was possibly the best in the whole book.  The parents' faces were so genuinely creepy... I had a total blast with this story.

It's a shame there's not a follow up book.  Apparently the scripts are available as actual scripts and I may have to invest.

He managed to capture the feel of the good episodes of TFTD and added to it with the hints of overarching storyline. I think this is my favourite graphic novel of the year so far.

Number 68 - Poppet - Mo Hayder

 

Mo Hayder sadly died on 27th July this year after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease in December 2020. 

The first of her books was The Treatment, one of the most disturbing thrillers I've ever read. The treatment is the second Caffery book so I bought the first book in the series (Birdman) very quickly.  That turned out to be equally disturbing with one revelation in particular that made me put the book down and go for a walk to get the image out of my head.

Since then I've collected each of her books as they were released,  I'm slightly behind in reading them and decided to pick up on the Jack Caffrey series where I left off when I heard the sad news.

While she's never reached the sheer disturbing heights of those two books since, she is still a guaranteed source of dark and gritty crime drama that hovers on the edge of true horror fiction.

This one is no exception.  A hysteria is spreading in an insane asylum about a dwarf that sits on the chests of the inmates and smothers them.

AJ is one of the chief nurses at the institute and is naturally concerned about the patients, especially when a spate of power cuts lead to an increase in the sightings, and a number of the patients self harming and worse. He contacts Jack Caffery for help  and the ensuing investigation forces both men to stand up to their internal demons.

For some reason the narration has turned to present tense, compared to the standard past tense of the previous 5 books in the series.  this lends the story a sense of immediacy and urgency. The story is gruesome and filled with unpredictable twists and turns.  The chapters are short and choppy, keeping the pace moving at a hectic rate. 

Luckily, Flea Marley is kept to the sub-plot in this book.  In the previous Caffery book I'd started to find her incredibly annoying. She basically went against all rules throughout and get herself into eminently avoidable danger as a result. Sidelining her from the main story in this one was a very good decision on Hayder's part.

This is an excellent addition to the Caffery series. It's best to read them in sequence since there is a strong continuity in place. However they do all also work well as standalones.

Once I've finished Wolf and hanging Hill I'll have read all the books she wrote as Mo Hayder.  She has a new book out posthumously next year - The Book of sand -  under the name Theo Clare.  It will certainly be on my to buy list.

Number 66 - Outcast volume 6; Invasion

The series may well be drawing to a close, I'm not sure... there's only maybe one or two volumes after this one, but they're very recently published. I don't know if the story is ongoing.  All will be revealed soon enough though.

It certainly seems to be building to a conclusion. The forces on both sides are gathering in strength, and after hiding out for the last two volumes, the good guys have been found.  

The storytelling is as good as ever, but the artwork feels sloppy in this volume. There are pages that seem very very basic. 

Hopefully it's just a glitch.  Meanwhile I'm on tenterhooks about how Kyle can prevent the merge and who the new big bad is that was introduced close to the end of this  volume.

 

Number 65 - Tumor Fruit - Carlton Mellick III

 It has to be said that this has an eye-catching cover. 

Carlton Mellick III is somewhat of a legend in the world of  bizarro fiction. On the strength of this book I completely understand why. 

A flight from earth to a new planet passing close by in the solar system is attacked by strange creatures, causing it to crash into the ocean.  The ocean is highly acidic and melts many of the survivors save for a small number who manage to float to "safety" on the acid-proof life rafts.

The survivors find themselves on an island with very few supplies. The air itself is toxic.  the flora is poisonous and the fauna has a taste for human flesh. Survival may prove to be an issue for the steadily reducing cast. By the time they realise that no rescue is coming, the only source of nutrition they have is the flower like tumors growing on one of the castaways (see cover picture).

I had zero idea what was going to happen next in this book.  Every page brought new surprises almost.  

That can be a good or a bad thing, depending on the skill of the writer.  A bad writer fails to keep any internal logic and the surprises are there for the sake of being shocking.  However, Carlton Mellick III is apparently a pretty damned good writer as everything that happens feels right for the book. He creates an internal logic and flow to the narrative that allows all the weirdness to exist as an organic part of the story. 

It's frequently laugh out loud funny.  It's frequently gross. It's frequently in horribly bad taste. it's frequently all those things at the same time. It's always entertaining. and is surprisingly moving when it wants to be.

This was my first taste of Carlton Mellick's particular brand of lunacy, and I want more of it.