Month: February 2016

Written by Brockton McKinney
Artwork by Sergio Rios
Colors by Marcelo Costa

The Action Lab: Danger Zone imprint has been having a ball with licensed properties from Full Moon Entertainment. The Puppet Master series has brought the horror icons back with stories that mix jumps and gore with clever plots that would work as direct-to-video sequels. For the next comic adaptation of the kinds of movies we’d rent again and again (they were called video stores, ask your parents), Ultimate’s own Brockton McKinney is setting aside the foul-mouthed kittens of Ehmm Theory and putting words in Gary Busey’s mouth as The Gingerdead Man.

I used to love the video boxes for the Gingerdead Man series, the silly excesses of a serial killer brought back to life as a cookie, but I haven’t actually seen any of them. Luckily, this book doesn’t require you to do any homework. Our story begins with a street gang (in playful punk caricature like only existed in cheap movies of the 80s and 90s) preparing to use an abandoned bakery to distribute a new drug called Confection. Two of the gang mix it into a batch of cookie dough they found and inadvertently resurrect “the cookie man with the deadly plan.” Commence page after page of slaughter with various baking supplies, silly puns, and infinite variations on poop-related swearing. The final page is such a bizarre blend of gore and adolescent erotic creativity that I can’t in good conscience spoil it, but I promise, you have never seen a visual like this and will never play Cards Against Humanity the same way again.

This series continues the B-movie fun we have come to expect from Full Moon features and the Action Lab Danger Zone. It’s a Did-They-Do-THAT hoot, and readers are going to love it.

Make sure to come to Ultimate Comics for a beautiful exclusive variant cover by Tommy Lee Edwards and head out to the Raleigh location Saturday from 11-2 for a signing by the writer and cover artist!

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics

Snow Fall #1
Writer Joe Harris
Artist Martin Morazzo
Colors Kelly Fitzpatrick
Image Comics

This isn’t the worst winter North Carolina has ever had, but Ultimate Comics has still lost a few days of business for snow and ice, and spring is still pretty far away. So it’s fitting that Alan’s assignment this week is a dystopian tale that gives up on the zombie cliche (may it rest in peace but goodness, may it finally stop) in favor of the horror of climate collapse.

In the future, after the climate crashes, a company called Hazeltyne collects survivors into the Cooperative States Of America. Ten years after the world became too dry for natural snowfall, a settlement in upstate New York is hit by ecoterrorist The White Wizard who has manipulated weather into a frozen blanket on the town. Meanwhile, a brilliant university student tracks down the Wizard’s secret identity in time to join his resistance as Hazeltyne enacts a horrible retaliation for the manufactured snowfall.

This isn’t the first time this creative team has talked to us about the environment – their Great Pacific series took a hard look at ocean pollution. But Harris and Morazzo aren’t just whining about the environment. They’re warning us that the state of our planet is closely tied to the political and economic lives of our nations, saying that the book’s apocalyptic climate crash was the result of overpowering corporations while editing the education of the human beings. They aren’t asking us to prevent the catastrophe. They’re telling us it has already started because of the way we have chosen to pay selective attention and cast specific votes. The North Carolina primary is fast approaching, and this book is a haunting reminder that we still have the option to vote for people who don’t believe in man-made climate change or who buy us with low gas prices while covering up our looming ecological debt.

Take of advantage of our little warm spell this week to pick this book up. And maybe take it with you to read in line at the polls.

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics

The House Of Montresor #1
Written by Enrica Jang
Art and Letters by Jason Strutz
Action Lab

Long-time friend of Ultimate Comics, artist Jason Strutz has a new miniseries out from Action Lab continuing one of Poe’s most haunting tales.

Last month, Strutz and writer Enrica Jang adapted the Poe classic, Cask Of Amontillado, in a stunning one-shot splashing with lush Carnival visuals and atmospheric underworld gloom. Having established their credentials as a talented creative team with a deep respect for the source material, the duo now moves on to a miniseries set two generations after Montresor murdered Fortunato.

Charming lead character Edana Fortunato has been at school in London until she is summoned to the family estate, where she will have to live for one month before she can inherit its vast riches and connected power. On her arrival, the lawyer managing the inheritance tells her about a family legacy of madness, mystery, and loss, and the following morning, an interaction with her grandmother gives Edana even more reason to doubt all she knows about her bloodline.

This book is a classic Hammer Horror movie enshrined on the page, with elevated dialogue that still sounds natural and lavish sets bathed in firelight. The more exposition-heavy pages are balanced by sumptuous illustrations so indulgent that the reader can almost hallucinate the music in the Carnival flashback. Strutz is developing a signature manner of throwing the reader’s eye across the page or smoothly guiding the view, giving elegantly titrated experiences of mood and tone in a story where very little dramatic action actually happens. Jang has already built complicated main characters worthy of Poe’s work on the sinister Montresor.

This book is a treat for fans of literature or horror. Make sure to get a copy while they last.

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics

Voracious #1
Written by Markisan Naso
Art, Lettering, and Design by Jason Muhr
Action Lab: Danger Zone

Ultimate Comics Overlord Alan sometimes gets a mad scientist grin when he gives me the week’s assignment. This week, I swear he cackled, promising to be Mystery Science Theater and give me a 64-page stinker. Well, Alan, you don’t win this time. This book is awesome, and everybody should check it out.

The story is so full of surprises that I am uncomfortable getting into too much detail, but the cover is a chef holding a cleaver and heading toward a bunch of dinosaurs, so I ought to explain that part. Nate Willner was an apprentice chef in Brooklyn until a shocking tragedy ended his old life and sent him back to his family home in Utah. After six months of drifting and grieving, he learns that he has inherited an estate from a distant relative and, for cool sci-fi reasons, he can now live his dream of opening a restaurant that serves dinosaur meat.

Even if this wasn’t proving a point to Alan, I would have loved this book. The silly joy of imaginative technology and people fighting dinosaurs with blowtorches is balanced with precision by the depth of emotion the creative team can display. The dialogue sounds natural and real, but the narration has a grounded poetry to it, a celebration of the natural world that is surely setting up dire consequences for screwing with the boundaries of time and the food chain. The art has an expressive style similar to the Luna brothers, and I would naturally shelve this next to their Alex + Ada or Ultra books for the gentle way a reader falls into this blend of comic art and profound human truth.

Action Lab has been a friend to Ultimate Comics for years, entertaining us at conventions and publishing work by friends of the store like Jason Strutz, Brockton McKinney, and Jeremy Whitley. Voracious is something wildly original, so much more than the Jurassic Park/Food Network mashup that made up the elevator pitch for this project. Readers can get 64 pages for less than five dollars, and I think that’s a great investment. Head on down to Ultimate Comics in Chapel Hill or Raleigh to pick up your copy. And then rub Alan Gill’s face in how much you love it.

-MATT CONNER for Ultimate Comics