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25th April 2024

Horror

The Root of All Evil: The Black Monday Murders #1-2 (review)

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The Black Monday Murders #1-2 (review)
Image Comics, September/ October 2016
Writer: Jonathan Hickman

If this title disturbs, it is because one of the most talented writers in American comic book industry, Jonathan Hickman, does a spectacular job of convincing the reader that he has kicked away at the topsoil of the falsehood of capitalism, humanity’s real and dirty habitat. Underneath lies a mouldy and parasitic truth to economics vastly terrible, and despite the black mystical elements of the story somehow it makes the world make perfect sense.

The methods by which the global capital markets work are a mystery to most. The idea of making money by moving money from one asset type to another by way of investment seems straightforward enough. But terms such as arbitrage, Libor, derivatives, hedge funds, short selling and, famously, sub-prime could just as easily be a foreign language to most people. The language itself does not mystify. The concepts themselves are alien.

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Nevera Tales: Elisa and Aston (review)

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“Nevera Tales: Elisa and Aston” Tiger Crab Studios, January 2018 Writer: Daniel Bishop “If you live long enough, you will know that it is pointless to ask mortals what they want, the answer will always be shallow and inauthentic. Simply listen to the music in their voice, where their eyes wander, and where they keep … Read more

Land of the Rats – Gastrolithicus (review)

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“Land of the Rats – Gastrolithicus” (review)
The Underground Forrest, 2016
Writer: Mark Nasso

In 1851 American writer Herman Melville wrote “Moby Dick”. Ostensibly a tale about the perils of whaling in pre-industrialised America, “Moby Dick” was one of the first novels which:

a. focussed upon “will to power”, in a Nietzschean sense, but thirty years before Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his texts beginning with “Thus Spake Zarathustra” (1883). The fundamental concept is that a person through sheer force of will can overcome any adversity;

b. anger with fate, as a fuel to that will to succeed. Many writers and philosophers have for centuries noted that the fates are cruel. In “Moby Dick”, Captain Ahab rages against God, embodied by the white whale, and drew strength from his fury.

In this fantasy work, entitled “Land of the Rats – Gastrolithicus”, a combination of narrative text and free-flowing art, the unnamed protagonist, wandering a strange and icy land, is subjected to various twists and turns of fate- enslavement, escape and recapture, being eaten by a giant monster, a fight to the death, and the decimation of his liberated comrades. The grim tale is punctuated by amusing monologue – reference to “ass-kicking” and the rise and fall of “stones” depending upon the protagonist’s mental state will draw a wry smile. Any additional humour, given the dire predicaments faced by the protagonist, would potentially have taken the fantasy across the line into farce along the lines of Voltaire’s “Candide”. But the humour is dry, such as it is, and is applied by Mark Nasso, writer and artist of this work, with minimal application.

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Yon and Mu (review)

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“Yon and Mu”
Kodansha Comics USA, October 2015
Writer: Junji Ito

“Yon and Mu” is an autobiographical exercise, the description of a dog person’s slow transformation into a cat person.

Writer and artist Junji Ito marries his sweetheart, described as “A-ko” (“ko” being the Japanese suffix meaning “child”, but has affectionate and cute connotations- “nekoko” for example means “kitten”) and they move in together. What Mr Ito entirely forgets is that A-ko has a cat, named Jun, which has been residing with her parents. And Mr Ito does not like cats.

Because he is an artist of horror manga, Mr Ito reverts to his tradecraft when describing his interactions with the cat. Jun is described as having an alien stare and a sinister bearing. When Jun sticks out his tongue to vomit, the image is captured with photorealistic horror – jaw almost disengaged and tongue projecting out out like a ghastly protuberance. At one point, when Mr Ito is out to meet a deadline, Mr Ito’s fatigue causes Jun to transform into a variety of monsters. It does not help that Jun has patched markings on his coat which look like a ghoul’s face. Mr Ito starts muttering to himself about curses, the cat causing anxiety and creeping horror.

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