Category Archives: Supernatural Horror

March 7, 2017 · 1:00 pm

ECCC 2017 Review: TOUCHING EVIL VOL. 1: THE CURSE ESCAPES

Close-up on panel from TOUCHING EVIL

Dan Dougherty is an award-winning author and illustrator. He is known for his humor comic strip, BEARDO, as well as various genre comic books. TOUCHING EVIL is an ongoing supernatural thriller series. It has an otherworldly quality about it that will compel you to keep reading. Dougherty has recently collected the first seven issues into one volume. Here is a taste of what you can expect in the following review. I also got a chance to chat with Dan for a bit at Emerald City Comicon and we did a quick video interview that you can check out at the end.

Panel excerpt from TOUCHING EVIL

Getting back to TOUCHING EVIL, there is much to say. First off, Dougherty has an uncanny way, both with his writing and his drawing, of calibrating a moment. Let me set this up. Our main character, Ada, is a beautiful and vibrant woman in the prime of life. She has a promising career as an attorney. She has a teenage son. And then, one day, she is assigned a task that results in a tragic outcome of supernatural proportions. When this happens, it seems oddly inevitable.

Essentially, Ada has the power of life or death over anyone with dark intentions. She touches them. They die. Meanwhile, her son has taken to wearing these black leather gloves with skeleton fingers. All this leads up to a pivotal moment: in order to secure she doesn’t accidently kill her own troubled son, Ada manages to slip on her son’s gloves before she hugs him. This is one of those masterful Dougherty moments: a sorrowful mother, her skeletal hands resting on the back of her son.

Page excerpt from TOUCHING EVIL

This is some wild story, if I haven’t made that clear yet. It gets under your skin, burrows its way in. Think The Twilight Zone meets Breaking Bad. It’s a certain vibe that hooks you in. Dougherty revels in well-placed details that later on elaborately blow up. A key aspect to the curse that Ada inherits is that anyone who she ends up executing by touch is a new soul who inhabits her mind. The death count mounts, as you may expect, and it gets crowded in Ada’s head. There’s a play within a play going on. Or you can think of it as a horror version of “Being John Malkovich.” Parts horror, cerebral, and offbeat humor, this is a highly engaging graphic novel.

Page excerpt from TOUCHING EVIL

And I get back to how Dougherty draws. His style is clean and crisp. Dougherty can make you believe you’re in a scary penitentiary and you’re walking down to its scariest section, The Ghost Room. He will make you believe in ghosts, demons, and being trapped in hell. And, without a doubt, you’ll get wrapped up in Ada’s plight.

Page excerpt from TOUCHING EVIL

Dan Dougherty is one of those talents in comics who is doing everything right. Well, that’s certainly an understatement. Whatever Dougherty does, it is going to continue to work out well. Maybe he’ll just follow a Jeff Smith model and keep building up what’s he doing on his own. He is an exciting talent and I highly recommend that you seek out this very intriguing work.

TOUCHING EVIL by Dan Dougherty

TOUCHING EVIL VOL. 1: THE CURSE ESCAPES is a full color 240-page graphic novel written and illustrated by Dan Dougherty.
Colors: Kanila Tripp and Wesley Wong
Cover art: Tom Kelly, with interior covers by Stephen Bryant
Additional inks: Monica Ras

This limited edition 240-page hardcover collects issues 1-7, as well as a never-before-seen bonus story, pinup gallery with art from Ryan Browne, Andrew Dimitt, Tom Kelly, and Doug Klauba! Read “season one” of Touching Evil in its most beautiful presentation!

Visit Dan Dougherty right here.

1 Comment

Filed under Beardo Comics, Comics, Dan Dougherty, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Horror, Supernatural, Supernatural Horror

Tagged as comic books, comics, Comics Reviews, Demons, ECCC, Emerald City Comicon, Entertainment, Ghosts, graphic novels, Horror, Media, Pop Culture, Publishing, The Twilight Zone

April 1, 2015 · 10:30 am

Review: THE WITCHER: FOX CHILDREN #1

The team of writer Paul Tobin and artist Joe Querio have created some more magic with their reuniting for another Witcher adventure. Does Witcher go on adventures? He’s such a low-key guy. He did end up on a misadventure last time.

That’s what Witcher does: sort of ends up on misadventures. For this one, he has a trusty dwarf. He’s rather tall for a dwarf and quite pudgy but he’s a feisty guy. The two of them stumble upon a bad idea that just keeps getting worse. Let’s say you were a wandering warlock/poet and you just happened upon a mighty ship heading to your favorite port. But it’s teeming with suspicious characters. You wouldn’t just jump on board and take your chances, would you? Well, Witcher does. And thus begins our tale.

You just got to love Tobin’s droll sense of humor and understated style. A Witcher tale can start any time and any place The dude is up for anything. But he can get quite adamant when he sees danger up ahead. Danger is a bad thing one should avoid. As a rule, Witcher doesn’t take foolish risks. Maybe a calculated risk here and there, mind you. But what was Witcher thinking this time? His overly cautious sense of danger was completely out to lunch. He really is on a ship of fools! One by one, we learn just how foolish and stupid these men are. And stupid is a bad thing, just as bad as danger.

It’s gets spookier from here on out. It is definitely a fine example of the Dark Horse danse macabre: gloom and doom, spiked with a touch of whimsy. Lucky for us, Joe Querio draws the hell out of this story, complimented by wicked earthy colors by Carlos Badilla. The opening scenes set the stage for all that is to follow. You’ve got Geralt, aka The Witcher, having to placate, Dwarf, his rotund assistant’s ranting. Out of nowhere, a huge wild boar nearly mauls Dwarf. Witcher instantly kills, and roasts, the boar, to Dwarf’s delight. No sooner has Dwarf set his sights on a boar snack than he confronts a rival for his meal. This creature mirrors the size and shape of the boar and is fives times bigger. It’s all a wonderful mash-up of the Brothers Grimm and Game of Thrones.

And what about the fox children? Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.

“The Witcher: Fox Children #1” is available as of April 1. For more details, visit our friends at Dark Horse Comics right here.

Dan Dougherty Announces New Beardo Comics Series: ‘Touching Evil’

Dan Dougherty is an accomplished cartoonist and illustrator who can handle anything from humor to horror and, believe it or not, a mashup of the two. His latest project takes a decidedly dramatic and intriguing tone, a tale about a woman with a most disturbing version of the Midas Touch, now available at Beardocomics.com.

In his own words, Dan provides the details:

I’m proud to announce an exciting new project: Touching Evil. It’s the first comic book I’ve fully written since Cyclone Bill and the Tall Tales. It’s also the first time that I’ve had my illustrations colored by a professional. Wesley Wong has done color work for years, most notably on the Marvel Masterworks series. He inked and colored Touching Evil, and has really taken my work to a new level that I couldn’t reach on my own.

So what is Touching Evil? The quick pitch is this: “An unsuspecting single mother stumbles upon an ancient curse. As the bearer of the curse, she can kill anyone simply with the touch of her hand – provided that the person is evil.”

If that piques your interest, that’s only the beginning! For not only does she have the dilemma of being a defense attorney, she is also completely unprepared to carry something so powerful. And power has a funny way of attracting those who want it. And those who want it tend to do whatever it takes to get it.

The first story arc of Touching Evil will be five to six issues in length, and – if it is successful – will be the basis for an ongoing series. As you can imagine, this idea is ripe with possibilities.

But before I get too carried away with it, I need to begin at the beginning. And I’m hoping you’ll join me for the ride. Issue one of Touching Evil is now available on my website, http://www.beardocomics.com/store . It’s only $5 plus shipping, and if you order it, I’ll throw in a copy of issue one of Cyclone Bill and the Tall Tales, which is long since out of print.

If you DO order it, follow the prompts on the order form. Once you see the screen that gives you your order number and says, “Your order has been correctly sent and will be processed as soon as possible,” then just scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the “Buy Now” button that will take you to Paypal. You don’t need a Paypal account to pay, it will take a credit card.

I’ve attached the cover image (done by Stephen Bryant) for issue one to show you the kind of quality that went into this book.

Visit our friends at Beardocomics.com.