Creepshow #1 // Review
Back in 1982, filmmaker George Romero paid tribute to the EC horror anthology comics of the 1950s with Creepshow--a horror anthology film that inspired a return to the anthology format in film and TV. There was a companion graphic novelization of the movie. Several decades and a couple of sequels later, Shudder TV picked up the franchise for a horror anthology show which has now spawned a brand new comic book mini-series that’s being released by Image Comics. The original comic book adaptation of the movie featured writing by mega-success Stephen King and art by horror legend Bernie Wrightson. So...y’know...no pressure or anything.
The opening story of the first issue is writer/artist Chris Burnham’s trick-or-treat Halloween horror “Take One.” Burnham’s visuals are amplified by colorist Adriano Lucas. A little mummy is pressured into taking more than he wants by a bully and a large hot dog. He’s scared, but he has no idea what lurks around the corner. The issue’s second and final story is “Shingo,” by the Creepshow TV writing team of Paul Dini and Steve Langford. A children’s party entertainer turns out to be a real monster in a fun, little comic bit of horror from the guy who co-created Harley Quinn. The story of Shingo is brought to the page by artist John McCrea.
Burnham’s story is a natural amplification of trick-or-treating horror. It’s a group of kids trick-or-treating. So it can’t be that bad, can it? Just a little light horror. Nothing more than that. Burnham hits expectations in just the right way in a fun opener to the new mini-series. Dini and Langford engage in a pleasantly comic genre-twisting with the second story. “Shingo” envisions a big, muppety monster that is an actual demon from antiquity, but he’s every bit as humorous as he is horrific. Everyone’s just a bit of a monster in a story of playful ghoulishness that ends the opening issue.
Burnham’s visual darkness is sharp and fascinating. Three kids of distinctly different ages hit the page with distinctively different personalities in a visual reality that amplifies the horror with an exquisitely grotesque dynamic. The drama of the horror is cleverly etched across the face of the three kids. Detail is given a gorgeous putrescence by Lucas’s colors. With the second story, Dini and Langford hand McCrea a fun concept, and he goes an enjoyable distance with it. McCrea’s vision of the muppety horror of Shingo really is the central appeal of the second story. It’s an intriguing blend of comedy and gore that doesn’t take anything too seriously.
The two stories follow the general theme of different kinds of greed taken too far. It’s easy to feel a sense of satisfaction in seeing victims becoming victims in a pair of horror stories. No one is really innocent, and no one is totally evil, so all of the gore and murder is somehow appealingly acceptable in the opening issue of a potentially fun anthology mini-series.
