Category Archives: Supernatural

August 25, 2018 · 10:20 am

Seattle Focus: Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop

Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop

A true curiosity shop is something to behold. Certain things are a given. Antiques. Vintage. Oddities. The magic comes in when you feel that you’ve entered into another world. If you are in Seattle, then you have to go to Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop. I’ve been thinking about doing a post on this shop for a while now. What I’ve always enjoyed about Ballyhoo is its funhouse experience coupled with its orderly presentation. Ballyhoo invites you to discover new and weird stuff while also making it easy to gain access to it. So, see for yourself in person. For now, enjoy my video tour. I welcome your comments, likes, and subscribing:

It’s human nature to want to wander around and explore. Some people take it farther than others. Some people find a particular itch to scratch. What are you in the mood for? Something old with character or something that pushes the envelope? You can satisfy your cravings in so many ways– and with a touch of strange.

Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop

Ryan Robbins, owner of Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop, is a gracious beacon of light. The key to success in any endeavor is passion. That is exactly what Ryan has to share with all of his customers. With palpable enthusiasm, Ryan described his vision for Ballyhoo as evoking the feeling of being in another world, one where anything is possible. Maybe something out of the movie, “Gremlins,” or “Indiana Jones,” or a haunted house in New Orleans.

Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop

Enter Ballyhoo’s wonderland and you’ve entered a tidy collection of stores within a larger framework: nautical, ethnographic, fossils and minerals. The quirky alongside the esoteric. You’ve entered a museum and funhouse.

We want to be taken out of our comfort zone, at least those of us that like to meet at curiosity shops. We want to slip into the unexpected. And we’re smart, very smart, about it. Maybe we get a tattoo at midnight, but it’s something that we’ve been planning on for months, maybe years.

Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop

Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop

Whatever you may end up purchasing at a curiosity shop comes with a certain level of commitment. Are you ready to own a significant piece of taxidermy? Or how about a gem, a print, or a t-shirt? Some of the oddest items get snatched up by bar owners and tattoo shop owners. Other items find homes as much from tourists as from local shoppers. Yes, Ballyhoo has its share of regulars. So, rest assured, whatever your tastes, there’s something for you at Ballyhoo Curiosity Shop, in Seattle’s Ballard Avenue Historic District.

As always, I welcome your likes, comments, and following. Be sure to like and comment at the Comics Grinder Facebook page too. You help make Comics Grinder special.

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Filed under Antiques, Ballard, Ghosts, Haunted, pop culture, Seattle, Strange, Style, Supernatural

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June 17, 2018 · 1:00 pm

Comics Review: Scoop, Vol. 1: Breaking News

Scoop, Vol. 1: Breaking News

The comics I’m enjoying the most lately are coming from Insight Comics. Scoop, Vol. 1: Breaking News is a perfect example of their fresh and engaging content. This is an action adventure featuring 14-year-old Sophie Cooper, a red-headed Cuban-American, high school freshman.

There are quite a lot of specifics here which add up to a story with unique depth and dimension. Sophie’s dad, the kind and responsible type, has been framed and placed under house arrest for embezzlement and money laundering. It is up to Sophie to prove her father’s innocence which leads her to become an intern at a local news station. One thing leads to another, and Sophie is piecing together Cuban history that is somehow connected to some pretty crazy secret lab experiments. I can see why this is just the first volume!

Scoop, Vol. 1: Breaking News

A growing trend for comics publishers is to feature more diverse main characters. Within the last few years, leading the way has been the character of teenage Kamala Khan, Marvel Comics’ first Muslim character to headline her own comic book, Ms. Marvel, which debuted in February 2014. Another compelling title, in the same spirit, is the soon to be released limited series, She Could Fly, featuring Luna, a 15-year-old hispanic high school sophomore, from the Dark Horse Comics imprint, Berger Books. This brings us to Sophie Cooper.

With Sophie Cooper, writer Richard Hamilton (Dragons: Race to the Edge) gives the reader yet another authentic voice. And artist Joseph Cooper (Marvel, DC, Valiant, Dynamite, and Image) proves to be an excellent collaborator. Rounding out the creative team are colorists Peter Pantazis and Alba Cardona. Some of the best comics are the result of a finely-structured collaborative process. That is certainly the case here right down to the details in production. This is a book that is a pleasure to read and behold.

Scoop, Vol. 1: Breaking News

Getting back to specifics, this comic will keep the reader engaged with various added touches. As explained in the afterword, nothing was left to chance. Pantazis and Cardona were careful to find just the right skin tones and just the right shade of firebrand red for Sophie’s hair. When it comes to evoking a sense of urgency and distress, Joe Cooper was sure to depict Sophie’s cracked cell phone and chewed fingernails. And, in story that includes UFOs and alligator-men, Richard Hamilton deftly adds various historical references including the 1953 attack of the Moncada Barracks that ignited the Cuban Revolution.

The unlikely team of Hal Ritz and Sophie Cooper.

In the course of this first volume, we follow Sophie as she navigates her way as an intern for a news station that is not exactly ready for prime time. Sophie discovers she has a nose for news and ends up helping the station’s veteran reporter, Hal Ritz, who shamelessly takes credit for an implausible lineup of journalistic achievements. But Hal is no fool either and readily spots Sophie as a rising talent and someone to keep an eye on. This unlikely team will need all the help they can get as they quickly find themselves well over their heads.

The Devil is in the Details.

Paranormal mystery meets conspiracy thriller in this action-packed comic for young adults. This has a fresh and original kick to it.

Scoop, Vol. 1: Breaking News is a 96-page full color trade paperback available as of June 19, 2018. For more details, visit Insight Comics.

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Filed under Comics, Cuba, Graphic Novel Reviews, graphic novels, Insight Comics, Insight Editions, mystery, Paranormal, Supernatural, Thriller, Young Adult

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August 4, 2017 · 8:00 am

Review: THE BLOODY CARDINAL by Richard Sala

THE BLOODY CARDINAL by Richard Sala

Everything is always perfectly distilled in a work of comics by Richard Sala. Everything from a dramatically constricted pupil to a young woman’s dainty feet. Sala has a way of cutting to the chase: he knows that he wants thrilling motifs and pretty girls–and he does a beautiful job of it. Sala is in fine form with his latest graphic novel, “The Bloody Cardinal,” published by Fantagraphics.

This new Sala villain makes quite an entrance and certainly looks pretty menacing. The Bloody Cardinal is no slouch, either, when it comes to murder. Clara Clarette, a charming young woman who had just purchased a mysterious book, is killed by the bird fiend. Enter Inspector Coronet, and his trusty compatriot, Dr. Sun. The good doctor has a mystical quality about him. He senses a malevolent bird-like creature is responsible for this crime. Sala does not miss a beat and paves the way for the reader to be undeniably hooked.

If you’re new to Sala, you are definitely in for a treat, especially if you enjoy a devilishly good mystery. At its heart, this is a good tightly-wound mystery. The narrative keeps popping along at a brisk pace. Each panel is a wonderfully rendered watercolor. Some cartoonists, like Sala, also happen to be painters at an accomplished level. You can’t help but appreciate how Sala distills scenes and characters to their essence.

The evil eye.

“The Bloody Cardinal” is an online serial, which follows in the tradition of his early classics, “The Chuckling Whatsit” and “Mad Night.” Perhaps it was one of these previous titles that was your introduction to his work. Sala has enjoyed a career spanning over thirty years with no signs of letting up. He has perfected a vision that, inspired by Gahan Wilson, Edward Gorey, and Charles Addams, he can safely call his own.

There is an undeniably sexy aspect to Sala’s work, as evidenced by all the compelling and voluptuous female characters in this book. The key distinction is that these are sexy, but not sexist, depictions in the service of a bigger picture. You get a worldly sense of the world from Sala: a world of books, mystery, the supernatural, and compelling young women to keep one on one’s toes. It is sophisticated fare accessible to general readers much in the same way that Hitchcock provided that special kind of entertainment in film. You could indeed say that Richard Sala is to comics what Alfred Hitchcock is to film. All those little details add up: apprehensive rats, a demonic puppet hung from a string, obsessive note-taking. The journey we take with Hitchcock as well as with Sala, with its Mcguffins and moody atmosphere, is as important as the destination, even more so.

A harbinger of doom.

In an interview last year with Tim Hodler, for The Comics Journal, Sala provides a window into the motivation behind his work: “What has always appealed to me over everything else, beyond horror or comedy or whatever, is a sense of the absurd. I think I got that from reading Kafka in high school and feeling a shock of recognition. I felt a kinship with absurd humor and black humor. Having an appreciation of the absurd – along with my childhood love of monsters – helped me survive in what was a dysfunctional (that is, crazy) household. I was drawn to the surreal and the expressionistic and the unreal, which is where I felt at home.”

“The Bloody Cardinal” is a 96-page full color trade paperback. This is a book that will appeal to a wide range of readers: anyone, say, 13 and up. For more details, visit Fantagraphics right here.

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May 18, 2017 · 11:30 am

Review: WINNEBAGO GRAVEYARD #1 (of 4)

WINNEBAGO GRAVEYARD #1 (of 4)

It’s that touch of strange that the best writers and artists tap into that makes all the difference. Writer Steve Niles says that his already odd story took some more twists and turns after he viewed what artist Alison Sampson had done with the first issue of their new limited-run comic book series, WINNEBAGO GRAVEYARD. Soon, you’ll be able to see the results for yourself. This is an advance review so a word to the wise (comic book retailers stock up!) and mark your calendar for this Image Comics release on June 14th.

Isn’t it spooky when you thought you saw something out of the corner of your eye? That particularly creepy feeling, the mixing of the banal with the terrifying, keeps building in this first issue in a most satisfying way. We begin in the small American Southwestern town of Acton, one minute after midnight. There’s an orgy of violence with a Satanic ceremony that climaxes with the emergence of a portly and banal naked man declaring his return from the dead. Who is this portly banal man? All we know is that he stepped right out of the body of one of that night’s victims to sacrifice.

This disturbing uneven feeling of disconnection and terror is quite pleasing, and the credit all goes to the team of writer Steve Niles and artist Alison Sampson. With dynamic and moody colors by Stéphane Paitreau. And lyrically placed lettering by Aditya Bidikar. Our story seamlessly rolls along a nightmarish landscape with characters nearly oblivious to what’s going on. It’s more of that delicious disconnection at play.

Winnebago Graveyard!

For, you see, the Winnebago from this comic’s title symbolizes a slice of normal that gets caught in this big fat wedge of crazy. It’s your all-American family, full of equal amounts of wanderlust and dysfunction, that find themselves way off course, all too close to Satan’s country. But are they aware of what’s going on? Sampson depicts them as utterly disconnected in such a masterful way. After spending a whole day in what amounts to an abandoned amusement park, they seem to be getting a clue that they’re very much out of their element. For now, it all seems like a sleepy nightmare.

I was mesmerized by Sampson’s artwork in GENESIS, a one-shot with Image Comics, and wrote a review of that you can read here. This latest comic lives up to what I expected to see next in her work. This is a smashing first issue. You will also want to check out the two essays at the end of this comic. One is on horror movies set in the American Southwest by Sarah Horrocks and it focuses on the 1987 horror classic, “Near Dark.” The other essay is about Satanism in the real world by Casey Gilly and it focuses on Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan and the potential motivations of its followers.

Both essays are part of a series that will run throughout all four issues. I am so glad to see these essays, which compliment the comic and, in fact, become part of the comic. As I like to point out to my readers, we do not live by comics alone. I make a point of writing about all sorts of things and they usually have a relationship to comics, even a quite meaningful connection, like my in-depth interview with novelist Jerome Charyn. Maybe I do things a little differently here but I’m not changing and I believe my readers appreciate that.

And let’s hold on just a bit. Yes, I would take issue with anyone who thinks a discussion about comics takes place in a vacuum. I don’t think anyone really believes that since, even the most so-called comics purist will veer off being strictly on topic. Life, the culture-at-large, bigger and brighter things, exist out there in the world. So, again, I say that the isolated prose, the two essays, in this comic becomes part of the comic. Gilly, in her essay, even directly refers back to the comic and asks the reader to question what the character Chrissie was really seeing. And Horrocks, in her essay, riffs so smoothly on the desert motif running throughout the comic. What a literate and artful comic! Buy it!

WINNEBAGO GRAVEYARD #1 (Of 4) is published by Image Comics and is available as of June 14, 2017. For more details, visit Image Comics right here.

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May 16, 2017 · 11:30 am

Great Review of ‘Alice in New York’ by Henry Chamberlain

I really appreciate the insightful review by Stacey E. Bryan of my graphic novel, “Alice in New York.” Stacey is the author of the humorous supernatural thriller, “Day for Night.” Her review is a wonderful boost of acknowledgement. All of us writers and artists strive for just this sort of connection.

The Big Apple. For a lot of people, those four words would mean little or nothing. But for me personally, it means a lot, because I was living there in 1989. The Twin Towers were still intact. Our country hadn’t turned that strange corner yet and started accelerating down a slippery slope into the 24-7 fear-mongering which has left us in the mess we’re in today.

When you’re in a mess, there’s no room for magic. But in 1989, in New York City, the old gods, the old ways, were still intact, and this is the year and the setting where Henry Chamberlain captured that feeling tenderly and bravely with his graphic novel “Alice in New York.” […]

via Alice In New York: A graphic novel by Henry Chamberlain — Laughter Over Tears

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April 25, 2017 · 2:00 pm

Book Review: ‘Day for Night’ by Stacey E. Bryan

Illustration by Henry Chamberlain

Damien Hirst, the bad boy of art famous for displaying sharks in art galleries, once asked his 6-year-old son which he would prefer in his bed, a girl or a zombie. The boy instantly replied, “Zombie!” That is a crude and random example, I know. But perhaps it makes a bigger point about our collective fascination with the macabre, the unknown…and sometimes that is made most clear from a child’s point of view. That brings me to “Day For Night,” a new novel by Stacey E. Bryan. It has zombies of a sort. And it even has a shark! Like my example, there’s a fine-tuned crude and random vibe to this book.

This is very much a Los Angeles tale. Bryan indicates any pause as a “beat,” reminding us we’re in Tinseltown, full of daily theatrics and scripts coming out of everyone’s ears. We also get a lot of local flavor with characters living out in Brentwood, Culver City, and Marina Del Rey. There’s much talk about the well-hidden Toluca Lake. Everything seems to converge for a time at Sepulveda Boulevard. Plus numerous movie references not the least of which is Francois Truffaut’s “Day for Night.” An old tattered poster for the film decorates the apartment laundry room our main character, Rae, finds herself in at the start of the book.

At first, we don’t know if Rae is caught in the throes of an anxiety attack but she readily declares she is experiencing the end of the world. Is she perhaps an aspiring actress? Yes, she is. But what she describes next leaves much room for further speculation. Rae witnesses her neighbor Annie levitate up above the tile floor. Annie blacks out just as Rae throws her yellow bra at the glowing force surrounding her friend. By the time that Annie wakes up, it’s too late to rationally explain to her that something most supernatural (thwarted alien abduction?) has just occurred. Annie completely missed it. Rae experienced the whole thing!

And so our story unfolds alternating between typical Angeleno angst and unexplained phenomena. It’s a wonderful balancing act that Bryan maintains. Basically, half the novel favors events more grounded in reality and then, as the weird stuff pushes its way to the foreground, you get a more mature version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Rae is in her thirties and, like her counterparts has had time to become more hardened and jaded than Buffy. Rae is a tough cookie recovering from quite a lot of rough scrapes, especially the day a tiger shark got too close and chomped off some of Rae’s fingers.

Bryan is totally in command of her story and has fun teasing out moments for her main character, Rae. Funny internal monologues give way to sudden outbursts followed by the latest development in Rae’s bumpy journey. Along the way, she encounters romance ranging from comical to intense. Throughout, Rae discovers a tapestry of connections that sustain her and help her grow ranging from the mundane to the sublime.

“Day for Night,” a novel by Stacey E. Bryan

Bryan has mastered that same melding of the everyday with the supernatural that has appealed to legions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans. The pithy exchanges between Bryan’s characters crackle with hard-won insight. It is insight mixed with harsh reality…and the movies. This is L.A., after all. It’s a mix of gumption that just might be enough to take on vampires and space aliens.

“Day for Night” is published by Vagabondage Press. You can find it on Amazon right here. And you can find Stacey at her website right here.

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Filed under Aliens, Book Reviews, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Horror, Los Angeles, Satire, Supernatural, Vampires

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March 14, 2017 · 3:30 pm

Review: AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS #1

AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS #1

When it comes to a comic book that is a big deal, it does not get much sweeter than AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS, based upon the critically-acclaimed novel and upcoming Starz television series by Neil Gaiman. Published by Dark Horse Comics, this comic is: story and words by Neil Gaiman; script and layouts by P. Craig Russel; and art by Scott Hampton. The premise: “Shadow Moon just got out of jail, only to discover his wife is dead. Defeated, broke, and uncertain as to where to go from here, he meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday, who employs him to serve as his bodyguard—thrusting Shadow into a deadly world of the supernatural, where ghosts of the past come back from the dead, and a brewing war between old and new gods hits a boiling point.”

Page from AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS #1

Okay, you had me at the name, “Shadow Moon.” And a “Mister Wednesday” employs him to be his Shadow? And, meanwhile, there’s a war of the gods on the horizon?! Yikes, that covers all the bases! And it sounds like a story by Neil Gaiman that I want to be in on. So, I read and, yes, this comic book is a big deal. I never read the original novel and now I want to. It all starts with the little details back in prison as Shadow copes with his three years under bars for assault and robbery. It doesn’t matter what you did to get into prison, he concludes, all that matters is that you’re in.

Page from AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS #1

Gaiman follows a smooth realistic narrative that only begins to hint at the supernatural at just the right moments. There are little hints like an agitated fellow prisoner and a disturbing lucid nightmare. Scott Hampton’s artwork follows suit with a gritty matter-of-fact style. Everything moves at a steady pace, only hints to anything otherworldly, only hints to anything out of the norm. And then things abruptly, dramatically, change. Shadow Moon, the lucky guy with a second chance at life, is in over his head all over again.

Page from AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS #1

It’s hard not to have read some Neil Gaiman, especially if you closely follow comics. But, whether you are new or familiar with Gaiman, this is a series that should prove to be a treat for you. This first issue has been very careful to take its time with developing our main character, Shadow Moon, the ex-con about to face a colossal challenge. I’ll be back to see what unfolds. This can easily become your next favorite title.

AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS #1 is available as of March 15th. For more details, visit Dark Horse Comics right here.

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March 13, 2017 · 9:00 pm

Review: COADY AND THE CREEPIES #1 (of 4)

COADY AND THE CREEPIES #1

Here is a comic with a twist on Scooby and the gang. Instead of a bunch of ghost-hunting teenagers, what if one of those meddling kids was already a ghost? Writer Liz Prince (Tomboy, Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed?) and artist Amanda Kirk team up for this four-issue comic book series, COADY AND THE CREEPIES, published by BOOM! Box, an imprint of BOOM! Studios.

In this first issue, we are introduced to a triplet sister band, The Creepies, with Criss, Corey, and Coady Castoff. They are all involved in a tragic van accident that scars Corey, leaves Criss in a wheelchair, and kills their tour manager…and, unbeknownst to them, actually kills Coady. She’s now a ghost, you see, although not fully aware of it at the start of our story.

Page excerpt from COADY AND THE CREEPIES

A fun part to this comic is that this is not your typical pop band scene. Instead, Prince went with a punk scene and plays with that harder edge. It’s all about attitude and keeping face. The guys in the band, The Boneheads, are especially competitive–and obnoxious. Check out the energy in Kirk’s drawing, reminiscent of Gary Panter. This comic packs a lot of power!

This is an inventive and engaging supernatural/band on the run mashup. And there’s plenty of local flavor too. Just as Coady is getting a handle on not exactly being alive anymore, everyone must deal with the ghost of La Llorona who haunts the Santa Fe River. That definitely conjures up a Dia de los Muertos vibe. Lots going on for a first issue. In terms of a rating, I give it a full four stars.

Coady and the Creepies #1 is available as of March 15th. For more details, visit BOOM! Studios right here.

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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.

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June 18, 2015 · 10:45 am

Review: DEATH HEAD #1

Death-Head-Dark-Horse-Comics

Dark Horse unleashes The Keller Bros’ “Death Head,” a supernatural-horror thriller and it hits all the creepy notes just right! There’s a lot of great titles from Dark Horse and this is one of them. Here’s one for you that exemplifies the Dark Horse sensibility. Here’s something that has the writing and artwork chops to give you a good scare. It taps into the classic bogeyman archetype with a fresh and down-to-basics approach.

In a smooth and seemingly effortless manner, we follow three different stories that are all connected in some way with our bogeyman. We don’t know much at all about him in this first issue. But we get some clues: this bogeyman is legendary and he’s very much alive. Good, so far. Joanna Estep provides first-rate horror comic art with dramatic settings and believable characters. This is all complemented by warm and spooky coloring by Kelly Fitzpatrick.

Death-Head-Keller-Bros

The characters in each subplot are all worthy of further study. We have Justine and Niles Burton, a couple on vacation in a national park. We have Lena and Maggie, two misfits in a Catholic girls school. And we have Bee, a little boy who is bullied into a tunnel where he meets Rosie, who appears to be a ghost. Oh, and there is quite a connection here: Justine and Niles are the parents of Maggie and Bee. You can just imagine all the possibilities when you have a family separated and a super scary killer has targeted them.

For this first issue, I really don’t think I could spoil anything. It’s a great setting up of events and anticipation for what’s to come. For something like this to work, well, it needs to jump out and grab somebody like me who has read a lot of stuff and has a pretty solid quality detector. This title passes with flying colors.

And this comic is sure to satisfy a huge Keller Bros. fan base: Zack Keller (cocreator of “Dick Figures,” the Streamy, IAWTV, and Annie Award–nominated web series with 650 million+ YouTube views) and Nick Keller (Turner of the Century). With “Death Head,” Zack and Nick Keller together deliver a supernatural-horror thriller about family and creeping, terrifying murder!

“Death Head #1” is out on July 15, 2015. It’s 32 pages and priced at $3.99. For more details, visit our friends at Dark Horse Comics right here.

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