New comic book Wednesday has come and gone. The dust at your local comic shop has settled. An eerie silence descends as you finish reading your last superhero book of the week. Now it's time for something a little more sinister. Welcome to Bagged and Boarded: comic reviews of the sick, spooky, twisted and terrifying!
House of Gold and Bones Pt. 2 of 4
The dream-like comic House of Gold and Bones is back this week with an even more dizzying and strange installment. Corey Taylor (the Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman himself) weaves a tale of a nameless, lost man in a world full of strange landscapes and savage people. This week our hero runs from those who would do him harm and comes upon some help in a dark forest. Here he learns more about "The Conflagration," a strange event that he may have to take part in.
Bag it or board it up? This is a classic "what the fudge is going on" story. You don't know anything about the world and neither does the character. At this point, I do want some more answers that I'm not getting. I'm beginning to not care about this lost dude in a weird world. As an audience, we need something to hold us down to the character. The artwork, however, is insane and gleefully out there in this issue. Sometimes the character's faces look hideous and deformed, even looking like they were drawn poorly, but that's artist Richard Clark having a go at the dreamlike source material.
Lobster Johnson No. 13Lobster Johnson is another richly detailed character from the Hellboy and B.P.R.D. world. Starting as a vigilante detective/murderous crime-stopper in the 1930's, Lobster Johnson went on to die and then become a ghost during Hellboy's time. This comic series sees Johnson while he's still alive and kicking (well, alive and shooting, really). In this issue, he hunts down a hit man and follows him to his boss.
Bag it or board it up? For all of my B.P.R.D. love, I am shamed to admit that I had never read a Lobster Johnson comic until this one. Holy crap, it's amazing. Get on it. The dude kills mobsters and uses his glove to burn a lobster claw brand onto their heads! What!?
True Blood No. 13You know the True Blood drill by now, right? You know: the little swamp town full of vampires, pixies, skin-walkers, shape-shifters, and lots and lots of sex. Well now it looks like there's some big trouble going around. A shape shifting goop seems to be taking the form of certain handsome members of the town, and they're marching toward the general population.
Bag it or board it up?True Blood, in general, isn't really to my taste. But, this comic was cool. A character uses a fire axe to good effect, and the dramatic tension ramps up in this issue. The artwork is interesting, in that everyone looks just like their actor-counterparts, and reminds me of the Buffy comics the way they advance the story. If you like True Blood check it out, but it won't convert anybody.
Half Past Danger No. 1Oh man, here we go. A group of U.S. soldiers during WWII are skulking around the South Pacific when they take a "short cut" and wander through a swamp. After hearing strange noises, the group is attacked and ravaged by dinosaurs. Yep. Dinosaurs. After an exciting scuffle, we cut to two months later where the general of that group is now a washed-out drunk. But a raven-haired bombshell and a big blonde brute try to recruit him back into action. And a bar fight breaks out. And a martial arts master shows up and starts kicking the crap out of people.
Bag it or board it up? That's all in issue one! This is my pick of the week, by far. The illustrations are some of the most beautiful and colorful I've ever seen. This is taken seriously, like true pulp should be. There's no winking and nodding to the audience, it's just straight-up crazy adventure. Read this comic or I will sick my dinosaurs and ninjas on you, okay?