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Reviews for December 2017 can be found in Archives Sidebar below.

GTT 2016 Holiday Special

12/31/2017

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Picture
Credits:
Story:
Joe Brusha
Ralph Tedesco

Writers:
Dave Franchini
Ryan Lynch
Dany Roth
Michael Dolce
Sina Grace

Artwork:
Juan Nicholas Cerone
Vincenzo Riccardi
Alessandro Miracolo
Moy R
Babisu Kourtis
Marika Cresta

Colors:
Valentina Cuomo
Jorge Cortes
Fran Gamboa
J.C. Ruiz
Erick Arciniega
Robby Bevard
                
Grimm Tales of Terror from Zenescope Comics is truly one of my favorite comic books to read.  This holiday special was different from the regular issues as we had four separate short stories in the one issue.  So, this WILL be a longer read.  But, no worries.  Still awesome stuff.

OUR STORY

In THIS particular specialty issue we start with a buxom redhead who is obviously hosting HER holiday dinner party for the season.  Along with making some rather unusual chitchat she begins telling stories…”stories among friends” she says. Ooookkkaaayyy….

So, she starts with Mall Santa, a true Christmas original, the Evil Santa horror story… Now we’ve all heard a version of this at one time or another, we’ve seen a version in a movie or in a comic book or on TV.  This one works at the mall.  A bad, evil mall Santa.  In the first two panels we see him kill a woman while singing a Christmas tune to her and the immediately return to sitting kids on his lap and doing the whole “what do you want for Christmas?” routine.

One little boy catches his attention when he figures out that it’s just the kid, his sister and his mother at his house. Now, as Santa a kid is gonna trust him and give him the address when he says “tell me your address so I can bring your sis some coal this year, since she doesn’t believe in me”…and addy given. (Insert huge eye roll here, parents make sure your kids now Santa already knows your address, shaking my head. This IS how horror movies happen ya know?)

Anyways, this whole time the non-believer sister is talking about “Krampus”, an evil spirit that comes to life and eats you if you say his name three times and are “misbehaving”.

Fast forward to later that night, everyone is at home after see psycho mall Bad Killer Santa. He comes to break in, does so, threatens the boy and goes upstairs to have his way with the mother.  The boy is left downstairs to his own devices. (Yes, I admit, this is not smart criminal, two kids in the house, doesn’t secure them or the scene, just runs on up to Mama to get some…moron.)

So kiddo is sittin' there thinking in his panic…Krampus…Krampus…KRAMPUS!!!  And he says the name three times out loud.  This huge disgusting gargoyle of a demon like creature (not holiday or Christmas like at all, mind you) shows up and has a simple question…”Where?”  Kid points upstairs.

Our demon monster heads upstairs, confronts Evil raping murdering Mall Santa in mid swing with a meat cleaver going at the mother’s neck and scares the shit out of Santa baby.  Santa begs to be allowed to repent only to be told there is no GOD here and he WILL suffer as the demon drags him from the home.
 
At the end of story one Red is drinking some wine and feeling pretty proud of her entertainment skills but, she wants to keep the party going.  So we move onto story two, Pollyanna.

This story takes place at a small office Christmas party.  We open with a bunch of judgmental; chicks gossiping in the ladies room… (I’ll withhold any stereotypical comment). They’re talking about who got who in the secret Santa drawing and how they are all creeped out by “Scary Gary”, the outcast of the office.  Apparently, he gives “creepy” mirrors for presents and when the lights go out, they look in the mirror, people freak out, run away and never come back.  Weird yeah?

So, at this point we are all thinking, well, what do they see in the mirror???

As the women are gossiping, the men of the office are sharing some “locker room talk” (wink wink) about who get what from who in the office and all that jazz. Some brag, some are more passive aggressive but they are all participating in the proverbial dick measuring contest.  We finally get to the point where the hefty office boss, who has obviously been tipping them back since the party first kicked off, states that “the gift giving may now commence!” and an eerie silence fills the room.

Gifts are exchanged.  Scary Gary gives his “creepy mirror” to our nameless female office worker.  Just as she receives her mirror the lights go out, just as she was told they would.  She looks in the mirror but it’s not HER reflection that scares her.  Scary Gary starts coming at her with a knife.  She panics telling him he doesn’t have to do this, they can help each other.  She looks in the mirror again to see one of her male coworkers reflection in it behind her,  He’s got the face of something she’s never seen before, something halfway between human and demon, something of this world and something beyond the realm she’s always known.

Gary lunges past her, plunging the knife into Ken, the male coworker.  She starts asking Gary all kinds of questions and finds out that this “mirror” can detect incubi and succubae, both of which are demons that use sex to seduce their prey and lure them in for the kill.  She’s shocked to find out Gary thought she was a succubus and they walk off hand in hand laughing about it as he tells her “everyone makes mistakes.” and she tells him she’s gonna take that as a compliment as they leave the party together, assumingly happily ever after.
 
Now by this time Red is getting anxious about presents and is wanting to know what’s inside the gifts that have been brought to her, questioning ‘haven’t you ever just wanted to take a peek?”

Which leads us into our third story, Sick Day.  You guessed it, Christmas time, parents hide gifts for people around the house, kid plays hooky to stay home from school and snoop.  This is one nosy ass kid too, practically tears the house apart looking for gifts.  His silly ass should be thinking about how he’s gonna explain this mess when the ‘rents get home but, no…on a mission.  And it turns out…he looks everywhere and can’t find anything, not a damn thing.  NOTHING!  So, where’s the last place to check? Buh, buh, buh….the BASEMENT.  Which if course this ten to twelve year old is totally terrified of.  But, his need to snoop for presents overrides his fear very quickly.  Still finding nothing of what would be considered of regular Christmas value; he does find an old looking book with a skull on the front, which honestly would entice me to no end.  Then he finds a door in his basement, one that he hadn’t seen before.  When he opens it leads to is crudely bored out tunnel that leads to only what can be described as a room used for, shall we say, unholy worship.  Just then two dark figures show up behind him, scaring the holy bejeesuz out of him and he throws his arms up in defense in front of his tiny face and begs for them not to hurt him.

They are his parents. They do NOT look like his parents.  They are blue demons with horns and they are explaining to him that they were trying to wait until he was older but since he found the room, they WILL NOT hurt him, he IS their son and he will soon be just like them, stating the “transformation” can now begin and they wish him a Merry Christmas, hoping to him that he likes his present of demon-life ahead.
 
Now, as we come back to Red, cutting her steak at her “dinner party”, lol, this chick, we finish out our night of Christmas cheer and merry togetherness with the last story, possibly her favorite story; the story of lonely, old, bitter Mr. Mendelsohn.

Mr. Mendelsohn seems, as we begin, the typical bah-humbug, if you will.  We start in a Norman Rockwell type town with a group of children in front of his apartment joyfully singing Christmas carols and spreading good cheer and the excitement and spirit of Christmas…which our Mr. Mendelsohn WILL NOT be having. 

He yells at the children, telling them to go away, to stop their incessant singing and jolliness which frankly, in his opinion, his cat screeches better than half of them.  At this point, a sweet, innocent looking little blond girl walks up to him and lectures him in a very sophisticated childlike manner that he shouldn’t yell at children that way, especially some of which are his former students. (Side note, so now we know he was some sort of “teacher”.)  He basically tells her that if they were former students then they should know better and sing better and tells her to bug off. (Ah ha, choir teacher, perhaps…)

Now, creepiness appears in full form as he turns to go inside.  He sees a small, childlike figure standing near…but this one is different than the carolers, eerie, ghostly.  Pale and drawn, as if almost floating there in his presence.  Also, it’s wearing a mask.  It reminds me completely of one of the Mardi Gras masks from the Twilight Zone episode ‘The Masks’…very ugly, sad, full of fear and pain, greed and disdain, just overall unsettling, if nothing else.  But, like he has to all the other children tonight, he yells at this “child” to go away and get home, retreating into his home and slamming the door.

As he’s walking around trying to find his cat to feed her dinner, he hears that incessant singing again, louder this time.  He walks to the door to belt out threats to the carolers once more and he sees a picture on the wall, one of him with one his top students, holding a 1st place ribbon in front of a piano. (Ah Ha!!! Piano teacher!!!!) This puzzles him; apparently this photo has been long put away for some time.  He also reminds himself his doctor said there WOULD be side effects to his meds.  (Side effects?  Hallucinations are beyond side effects people…just a PSA.)  Although…the little girl in the photo, looks a lot like his lecturer from earlier this evening.  Of course, the angry old man shakes all of this off…moron.

He goes back to his living room, more old photos strewn all over his floor, same kind of pictures; him and his students, 1st place ribbons, in front of pianos. 

BAAMMM! Power outage! It IS winter weather, you see…

Suddenly, as he’s stumbling around in the dark, the singing still loud and annoying him, his feet get caught in a string of red mini Christmas lights, which illuminate a framed newspaper page on the wall “Missing Child”…
He keeps telling himself it’s just his meds, that it’s not real as the lights wind around his feet, halting his movement.  He turns to the opposite wall, his instrument wall, and screams in horror.  His cat is pinned to the center of the wall, eviscerated, a look of sheer terror on its little furry face. 

As he turns to try to run he trips and falls in the mess of lights and his piano eerily slides over, lifts up and smashes down on him causing him to cry out in pain and anguish, his bones and body crush under the weight of the baby grand.  Through his screams, a child’s voice “Touchy, feely teacher…look at me...”.  (Now we know EXACTLY WHAT HE IS, yeah?)

This is the masked child.  The closer the child gets the more scared Mr. Mendelsohn gets.  Then, just as they are face to face, the kid rips off the mask to expose a horrible, decomposing, demon-zombie like face.  Of course Mr. Mendelsohn screams out begging for help and the child is much too happy to oblige.

Raising both hands, a grimy syringe with a bent, twisted needle in each hand, the child tells Mr. Mendelsohn he DOES need help, he needs more medicine and plunges the syringes into him, Mr. Mendelsohn crying out in agony as he dies.

And our little girl, our little lecturer, she’s outside at the window with a front row seat, watching every little ounce of agony and terror spew from Mr. Mendelsohn as she smiles and says, “Never again.”, and she runs off to join the other carolers.
 
And now we are back to Red.  She’s telling us that one had a happy ending.  Right on.  Can’t say I disagree.  She then points out that it’s somewhat disturbing to know that people like that even celebrate the holidays…”murderers, thieves, rapists and kidnappers.”  And we see that her dinner guests are...dead people.  That’s right, DEAD people, presumably those she has wreaked havoc on herself.  And as she points out that we all celebrate equally, she wishes ALL Happy Holidays.

OPINION DOMINION

As always, I love Grimm Tales of Terror.  They always leave me wanting more and I can’t get enough of the artwork.  There are subtleties in the writing that you catch onto reading it a second time.  Great strokes of genius in the storytelling and artwork.  Always fun for the true horror fan. 

Now a little more detail about the artwork here.  Now that being said, there are a number of writers, artists, story creators, letterers, etc. for this issue.  To give proper due credit to each one would take way to long.  SO, I WILL say this... Each story took about five to seven pages and moved very quickly, wasting no time on a lot of needless character development or background information, yet still leaving the average horror fan satisfied with the blood and gore they were exposed to along the way. The artwork, even though there are multiple artists contributing to this issue, is the same caliber of artwork you have always received from GTT and, in my opinion, is great artwork.  These artists and writers are truly talented.  You can tell that each artist has their own style but they all work very well together in the issue allowing it to flow very easily for the eye of the reader as they move through the stories. Plus, it’s a nice break for each short story to have their own artists. Oh and I happen to think that it was very cool of Brusha and Tedesco to give full cover credits to the writers of the stories and that's it.  Everyone gets credits inside the comic book but, to get full cover credits is really awesome when you are collaborating.  As always, thanks for reading!!!  Hope everyone had a great holiday.  Wishing you all a Happy and SAFE New Year!!!
 
RATINGS
Overall 4/5
Story 4/5
Artwork 5/5

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GTT #9 Mental Patient

12/30/2017

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Picture
Credits:

Writer-Joe Brusha
Artwork-Joe Sanchez Diaz
Colors-Fran Gamboa with J.C. Ruiz
Letters-Fabio Amelia
 
OUR STORY:
 

We begin at a service station.  It’s a dark, cold and snowy, desolate area.  An angry, disheveled man is standing inside at the counter, counting what little money he has to see if he can afford a bus ticket for the soon departing bus outside PLUS his much needed pack of cigarettes.  Realizing he can’t, he opts for the pack of smokes and pays.
 
Now, let’s cut away from our story for a minute for some quick background information.  In most Grimm Tales of Terror there is s redhead that tends to pop up at the beginning of the story and interact with our main character, sometimes offering life advice.  In this issue, she’s the gal behind the counter at the service station.  And right on cue, she offers our man some free advice, which he does not want to receive, but he humors her. (I mean, the chick DID just sell him his nicotine fix.)  Her genius advice…what he does today will affect the rest of his life (she sounds like those vague horoscopes or Miss Cleo).  He blows her off with an enormous attitude and exits the store, thinking to himself that this chick is nuts.
 
He’s a very hostile, bitter man.  It’s made obvious that this man oozes negativity like an infected wound.  No doubt he has some valid reasons for being such a loathsome human being (I’m sure we all do.) however, he seems to be making this not just an attitude but, an entire lifestyle and mantra.  As he’s walking outside to smoke he’s complaining to himself about how his life sucks, how he’s never had much good luck and how he needs a change, warmer weather, sunny days…something better than the deep winter he seems to be stuck in.  That’s why he wants on that bus.  Yet he doesn’t have a ticket.  While standing outside smoking he watches some of the bus passengers mosey into the station for snacks and restroom breaks.  When one passenger, a grown man, enters the bathroom, he hangs his coat up on a hook on the wall so he can go into one of the stalls.  Our guy sees this, ceases the opportunity and steals the coat.  Next, we see him smoothly joining the crowd boarding the bus again.  A large man in front of him smiles really big and hollers back to him that “Pete is going to Disneyland!”  Our newcomer doesn’t care and rolls his eyes saying, “Good for Pete.” and boards the bus.  He sits down and as the bus takes off down the road, he drifts to sleep dreaming of his next stop…Florida.
 
He awakes to find sunlight beaming through the window and warming his face.  He looks out the window and sees snow…SNOW?! He immediately perks up realizing that Southern Florida doesn’t have snow.  Still as he looks out the window it remains the white winter wonderland he so desperately wanted to leave behind. (So much for beaches, bikinis and Pina Coladas.)  He scans the other passengers in the light of day and realizes that they don’t appear to be on a Disneyland vacation bus.  He looks out the window again just in time to see a sign…a wrought iron sign hanging eerily above a wrought iron gate.  It reads, “EASTMAN SANITORIUM”. (Uh oh.)
 
Needless to say, our fella loses his cool and starts freaking out right there in the bus before it even comes to a stop.  As he’s hooting and hollering about how “This is NOT Florida!” others on the bus are doing their own thing…talking to themselves out loud, randomly singing, hiding from people that aren’t there…seems like a real bunch of tortured minds.  He sprints to the bus door only to be blocked by the robust man in a uniform that was driving the bus.  Then, men in nice, clean, pressed white coats show up and assist the driver in subduing our worried, out of control passenger.  Crying out that he’s NOT crazy, he sees a woman approaching…a prepped syringe in hand.  She quickly injects him in the shoulder and shortly…he’s out like a light.
 
He wakes up sometime later, he doesn’t know how long, strapped to a hospital bed.  A blonde nurse is examining his eyes and writing things down on a chart attached to a clipboard.  She asks him, “Mr. Carey?  How are you feeling today?”  He pleads frantically with her to let him up; that there’s been a mistake, that’s not his name, that he doesn’t belong where he is.  She clears things up really fast…”There sure has been a mistake. You’ve been a bad boy and now you need to be punished.”  He begs for his release.  “After treatment I PROMISE you’re going to go to general population.  We just need to settle you down a bit.” and she puts a small cylindrical object in his mouth between his teeth to prevent him biting off his tongue.  We see two guys with a machine on a cart in the background.  BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! The blonde is standing behind the machine on the cart and flipping the switch.  Our poor soul is belted to this bed and this chick is electrocuting him…and she’s enjoying it! She sends the high powered voltage through him until he can’t take it anymore and passes out from the pain.
 
We see him sitting in a chair, incapacitated and zombie-like, being fed pills, getting injections, sprayed violently with a fire hose (that hurts, by the way), chased…just existing in a world of demonic depravity.  He tries to escape and he is put in a strait jacket and locked in a padded room.
 
They let him out of the seclusion room and put him back out with the other patients.  They are grating on his nerves.  They have been since he’s been there.  He can’t take it…the incessant singing, the constant medication, the wild environment…he snaps.  He throws a glass into the face of the singer in the room.  It shatters upon impact causing the singing patient to fall down and staff members to pour into the room.  This is his chance…our man makes a break for it.  He runs through the long institutional hallways, down many flights of stairs, with eager staff members racing behind him to catch up.  And then he sees it…the door…the door to the outside…where he belongs…where he longs to be…his hand outstretched…so close…almost touching the handle…there…and…Tackled from behind by a burly male staff member that would give Paul Bunyan a run for his money.  Subdued by a “roided out” arm putting him in a choke hold, the staff finally gets our guy hogtied.  The doctor shows up and requests he be sent to the operating room at once.
 
The doctor converses with his nurse, explaining to her the severity of the behavior at hand and that they need to try something new with this particular patient.  When she asks him what he has in mind, he tells her “a frontal lobotomy.”  He justifies this further by explaining that he has long been waiting to try this procedure.
 
Our bad boy…”AAAH!”
 
They strap him back down to a hospital bed.  They put something in his mouth again.  The doctor approaches with a needle.  Our poor boy prays to God as the doc brings the needle closer and closer to his left eye.
 
Just then there is a knock at the door and a man in a suit and tie peeks in and requests to speak to the doctor.  They exchange a few words and then all of a sudden the doctor instructs the restraints to be removed from our man and to let him go.
 
The man in the suit speaks, “Mr. Gates? You are here by mistake.”  Mr. Gates?!  That’s his name!  This guy knows who he is!  The suit leads Gates out into the hall.  They are met by two more men in suits…with badges.  They inform our Mr. Norman Gates that he is under arrest…for the murder…of David Carey.
 
Gates starts to protest and then it hits him…THIS is no mistake.  He thinks back and remembers…the guy in the bathroom at the service station…David Carey.  That guy wouldn’t just give Gates his coat.  He wishes he would have…but, he just wouldn’t.  So Gates ripped the plaque of hooks from the bathroom wall and beat Carey to death with it.  After all, he was cold, homeless; in such a bad way…he did what he had to do.  Mr. Gates is taken to court and sent to…The EASTMAN MENTAL INSTITUTION for evaluation and until he’s deemed competent for trial.  Gates has a horrible outburst in court and is hauled out screaming “NO!” fearing his return to perceived Hell.
 
We then see this poor, depressed shell of a man getting pushed in a wheelchair down a hall and into a room.  The doctor and blonde nurse are standing by the room’s doorway, smiling evilly.  He asks the nurse pushing the wheelchair to make Mr. Gates comfortable…because they have a procedure to finish with him. 
 
Gates reminds himself he’s never had much luck…and resides with the fact that what little luck he DID have, just ran out.

THE END
 
OPINION DOMINION
 

I, personally, LOVE the Grimm Tales of Terror series.  These stories are always quality reading.  They move quickly, keep you on edge and these writers at Zenescope Entertainment Inc. really know how to pack a lot of punch.  In this particular issue, I enjoyed the idea that we had no name for our main character, which was developed in a genius way, in a matter of frames.  The consistent appearance of our mysterious redheaded woman is also a valuable foreshadowing tool that allows us as the reader to know that something sinister is coming.  I also always enjoy the twist, if there is one.
 
The artwork is usually very excellent in this series as well.  If you don’t like the “pin-up” version of the female form then, you probably won’t care much for the art involving female characters but, these artists really do have mad skills.  The chilling, yet gorgeous, women in these comic books are shockingly pretty, eerily creepy and can definitely give you the willies.  The artists accomplish great work in conveying every emotion and thought of the characters we meet.  The colors and type of scheme vary issue to issue, of course.  In this issue, the colorist keeps the pigment muted and almost drab.  It really helps the depressive and institutional aspect of the story line.  All in all, a very good issue to read.
 
RATINGS
​

Overall 4/5
Story 5/5
Artwork 4/5

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White #1

12/30/2017

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Picture
Credits:

All writing and artwork by: Dan Schaffer

Hi! The Countess here.  Let’s jump right into the deep waters, shall we?

We begin this review with WHITE, a new series from FIRST Comics, artwork and written by Dan Schaffer.
Now, I’m a complete shark lover, a fanatic even…JAWS is an all-time favorite movie of mine.  So, naturally, just by looking at this cover, it caught my attention IMMEDIATELY!!!  Just by looking at the cover you can assume there is a plane crash into the ocean, girl stranded, lots of hungry sharks…yeah, I’m there.

Okay, so story line, here we go…

OUR STORY

Okay, so there were five or six people on a plane including our beautiful blonde Production Assistant Willa Hambra, her boss Barbara and a A-List actor named Ryan who obviously had a “thing” with our dear Willa that seems to have gone awry (you know how that goes in Hollywood).  And, yes the plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean somewhere far off the coast of California.  As the plane goes smashing into the water, it of course gets demolished on impact, I mean, at that speed and that altitude that’s like hitting concrete.  So, there’s bodies flying everywhere and plane parts all around sinking, people screaming and then we see it…BLOOD…SHARKS!!!! 

Willa, of course freaks out, as I think most people would, as she watches her boss and I assume recent former boy toy/lover get turned into supersized lunch servings right before her eyes as she struggles to pull herself up onto a broken wing of the plane floating nearby.  She also sees Ryan’s backpack float by quickly which she knows has his stuff in it, including…wait for it…a SAT phone!  She’s saved right?!?!

NO.

Now, unfortunately, this is where we are faced with the REALITY of true human intelligence in this world.

Willa, bless her terrified heart, (which let me mention, ALL of this has happened only about five pages in so she’s NOT having a very good day and personally, I think she’s handling it like a trooper thus far), takes out the SAT phone and dials the pre-programmed emergency number.  YAY!

NO.

The person who answers is not concerned for her safety at all; he wants to know how she got that number, which happens to be a Coast Guard Training Facility in Cape Town in South Africa…a little far from where she’s at no?  He then tells her he’s terminating the call, she needs to save battery, he’ll call proper authorities, send your GPS coordinates and basically sit on your broken wing holding your SAT phone and wait for a phone call. Then he hangs up.  Helpful yeah?

NO.

So, she dials the emergency number again. (At this point I’m thinking two things. 1. Chick needs to conserve that effin’ battery, genius.  2. People are so stupid.) This time the same guy answers and she’s like who’s gonna call, when, what the eff is going on?  Are you not the rescue workers to help me?
 
NO.

He tells her your rescue is handled out of Port Elizabeth, let me transfer you (we all know those wretched words of impending doom as we wait to see if the transfer ACTUALLY works)… … …

“Port Elizabeth Marine Center”…are you serious?  This poor girl can’t get ANY emergency rescue service people? They inform her yet again, NO Coast Guard, telling her the Navy assists in emergencies…”Is this an emergency?” (Really Bitch???”)

Now keep in mind the whole time she’s messing around with these jackholes on this SAT phone the sharks are circling like hungry predators waiting for the prey to slip into the water.  This distracts her just long enough at this moment that she doesn’t answer the twits question fast enough and the Marne Center lady tells her to call the International Emergency Number and hangs up on her.  Did she give her that number???

NO. (Chick cannot catch a break.)

Then she gets a call from the main office.  She gets the snotty girl in the office no one likes.  You know the one, the one who thinks she runs everything because the boss won’t fire her…yeah THAT ONE.  This chick is yelling at her to give Ryan his phone back, Willa’s yelling Ryan’s dead and demands to talk to the big boss man, foul language going back and forth, hysterically funny. Then the Boss Boss gets on the phone, yells at Willa about fooling around with Ryan, threatens her job, doesn’t hear a WORD about “I’m crashed and the only survivor in the middle of the Pacific” and then he hangs up on her too.  Again, helpful right?

NO.

At this point, she seems to have a moment of some type of self-realization because she uses the phone to call her Mom.  However, the answering machine picks up.  Another feeling of defeat washing over her, a shark bumps into the wing and sends her sliding across from one side to the other.  They do this periodically, almost tormenting her, at least in her scared opinion.

Then she gets a call.  It’s a woman named Maggie Swatek, a marine biologist on a research vessel near Sydney, Australia.  Maggie assures Willa they are informed of her situation and are on their way to her however, to keep her hands and feet out of the water (seriously…one has to be told that when multiple sharks are circling you like you are first prize at a cake walk?)  They discuss looking for the life raft that should have been on board the plane, knowing that it should have a flashing beacon type light on it Maggie tells Willa to look in the water for it…but she doesn’t see just one light, she sees many.

When Willa asks Maggie why there are so many lights Maggie reluctantly informs her that they are in fact, shark tags, because Maggie, and her associates, are shark researchers.  Now Willa REALLY freaks.  She’s thinking the dinner bell has been rung and she’s the only thing left to serve up.

As Maggie is trying to calm her down a shark charges the wing of the plane and takes a strong snap at it.  Willa screams thinking the shark is trying to get at her like JAWS eating the Orca but, Maggie explains that it’s a “test bite” and it’s really just being investigatory. (Like that’s really gonna matter to Willa right now.)  Also during this conversation, Willa hears some guy in the background talking to Maggie saying, “Tell her the truth”…creepy yeah?

YES.

This would be Jay, an associate of Maggie’s, seems to be somewhat of an underling in Maggie’s eyes.  But he’s got balls.  He swipes the phone from Mags and tells Willa basically, “look, you’re in the middle of what we call The White Shark Café.”.  What this is an aggregate area about 1200 miles out from California where seasonally Great White sharks come to gather and feed.  And when Willa asks how MANY sharks there are where she is, Jay tells her…a couple hundred.  Maggie grabs the phone back from Jay at this point obviously pissed he’s spilled the beans and dejectedly confirms to Willa what he’s told her.

Just as Maggie gives the confirmation, Willa hangs her head in defeat, asks Maggie to lie to her from now on and then…BLAMMM!!!!  A shark crashes into the wing of the plane on which she’s seeking her refuge, flinging her helplessly into the water, SAT phone in hand, Maggie on the other end of the line…”Hello? Willa? Are you there?”

THE END

OPINION DOMINION

Now from the cover to the artwork to the writing, I was down on this from the get go.  The fact that there was action and violence, terror and horror and blood, suspense and thrill on the first three pages, as a horror/suspense/thriller fan they got me.  The real life stupidity of the average person on the other end of the phone did make me laugh and frustrated at the same time, making me feel like Schaffer is going to be pretty good at making you feel level with the character, Willa.  The cliffhanger at the end is always a great way to get me to come back…I’m a sucker for a cliffhanger.

Overall, I was very pleased and I was glad I just happened upon this at the comic book store the other day.

RATINGS
Overall 5/5
Story 5/5
Artwork 5/5
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