Dread The Hall H #1 // Review
It’s that time of year again. San Diego Comic-Con. Image Comics celebrates this year’s con with Dread The Hall H. Writers Jordan Hart and Chris Ryall craft a series of horror stories set in and around the con. Artists Chris Anderson, Nelson Dániel, Piotr Kowalski and Jimmy Kucaj render the stories for the page. It’s a quaint collection of horror stories that occasionally go off the beaten path of traditional horror, but largely the premises don’t seem to be attempting anything terribly original. Though there are a few clever bits of storytelling, Hart and Ryall seem to be rlying on the novelty of simply setting traditional horror stories in the San Diego Comic-Con atmosphere.
There’s a gentleman who has been waiting a rather long time to be allowed to ask a question of a pair of Hollywood actors in Hall H. Now that he finally has a chance, he’s a bit scattered with the question that he’s asking...but he’s determined to figure out what it is that he’s going to ask as he HAS waited for a long time to ask the question. Elsewhere there are a couple of attendees who have finally discovered something in the neighborhood that DOESN’T involve standing around in line...but they may find more than they’re looking for just a few blocks from the San Diego Convention Center.
And there are zombies. Quite a few of them. Hart and Ryall mix-up the horror a bit in a way that feels reasonably diverse even though much of it isn’t exactly all that original. There’s a hell of a lot of energy that’s built-up over the years for the big annual con, but Hart and Ryall don’t manage anything terribly insightful that really engages the distinct realities of one of the world’s biggest conventions of its kind.
The art team develops some pretty solid renderings of classic images from in and around the convention center. The distinctive visuals of the area ARE there, though they lack the kind of architectural precision that would make the San Diego Comic-Con distinctive. There’s real potential in the horror of inherently commercial spaces that the art team doesn’t exactly find the right angles to engage in. There ARE aspects of the anthology that feel very specific to the con, but there isn’t enough there to engage in the specific visuals of a very iconic part of American comic book culture.
It’s a fun premise that feels like it could have really been something. Honestly there’s no reason why Hart and Ryall can’t take another swing at this same anthology next year in a series of stories that play a bit more with the distinctive horror potentials of a huge comic book convention. In so many moments, the anthology seemed to be going off in a direction in which it COULD get into something truly unique and interesting. It never quite manages it, though. Given the right momentum, though, Hart and Ryall could really do something with future annual issues of this anthology if it were to continue-on as an annual series.
