Comics by comiXology

Digital | Comics by ComiXology has topped Apple’s charts as the top-grossing iPad application for the last six Wednesdays. ComiXology cited the launch of DC’s New 52 initiative, as well as many other comic companies moving to a same-day digital release schedule, as reasons for its success. “When have comic books, not comic book movies, not comic book merchandise, but the actual comic books been #1 in anything, much less high tech?” comiXology CEO David Steinberger said in a statement. “Being the number one grossing iPad application six Wednesdays in a row isn’t just a huge milestone for comiXology, but a huge milestone for comics as a medium … and we could not be prouder.” [press release]

Creators | An auction for the naming rights to a character in Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’ The Secret Service raised $5,100 for St. Bartholomew’s Primary School, where Millar attended. The money will be used to pay for field trips for the school’s students. “I’m a former pupil at St. Bartholomew’s and have so many great memories of the place,” Millar said. “I know there’s not a lot of money in local government at the moment and I was sad to hear that the annual school trip for the children had been cancelled. By establishing this fund, I hope to have a pot the head-teacher can dip into every Christmas and take the entire school to a pantomime every year.” [Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser]

Brian Azzarello (by Seth Kushner)

Creators | Christopher Irving profiles Wonder Woman and Spaceman writer Brian Azzarello. [NYC Graphic]

Creators | Werewolves of Montpellier creator Jason discusses his career and influences, including Tintin creator Herge: “I borrowed his albums at the library as a kid. I started drawing my own cartoons. And I think you can have a much worse teacher than Hergé. It’s not really the clear line that is the most important thing, even if that is part of what I like with him, it’s more the very clear storytelling that you find in his books. On page three you’re hooked. I think you can read his books in a foreign language, in Russian, and still understand the story and enjoy it. I don’t re-read the books that often, but I often take them out, my favourite albums like The Broken Ear and The Shooting Star, and just look at the drawings.” [The Casual Optimist]

Manga | Deb Aoki interviews the editors of Viz Media’s new yaoi manga line SuBLime, which will offer boys-love stories in both print and download-to-own digital form—with many digital offerings being available worldwide. [About.com]

Manga | Shaenon Garrity turns her sights on the classic, criminally overlooked series Basara: “Almost alone among long-running manga, Basara reads not like a serial, but like a single 28-volume graphic novel.” [Anime News Network]

Digital | Mashable profiles Graphicly founder Micah Baldwin, who also started the “Follow Friday (#FF)” meme on Twitter. [Mashable]

Kobo Vox

Digital | While it’s not getting as much attention as the Amazon Kindle Fire, the Kobo Vox color e-reader shows some good potential as a comics reader, and it comes pre-loaded with an Archie comic. [The Beat]

Review | Greg McElhatton reviews Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick’s graphic biography of physicist, raconteur, and “major horndog” Richard Feynman: “Reading Feynman did what few other books about scientists have done for me; it made me think, ‘I wish I’d met this guy.’” [Read About Comics]

Accessories | The New York Times takes its readers inside the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, where the trendy New York superhero can buy particle guns, thunder inducers, grappling hooks and, of course, capes. [The New York Times]

Events | Isotope Comics in San Francisco will host Lark Pien, Thien Pham, Alex Puvilland, Jordan Mechner and Mark Siegel this Saturday for a Halloween-themed party. [Isotope Comics]

Conferences | Peggy Burns recounts, with many photos, her trip to the University of Iowa for the Comics, Creativity, and Culture Conference. Guests included Jeet Heer, James Sturm, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, and a host of other comics luminaries. [Drawn and Quarterly]

Chris Schweizer is too busy to do a lot of Halloween sketches, but his take on Frankenstein’s monster as a work in progress is too good to pass up. Click the link for a scary story about Schweizer’s own Victor Frankenstein experience.

When he’s not busy running the Stumptown Comics Festival, Indigo Kelleigh draws comics, and he has come up with a cute mini-comic to hand out to the lucky kids who knock on his door this Halloween. Seven Little Monsters is a spooky riff on the Five Little Monkeys tale, done in a slightly retro pen-and-ink style. He posted the whole thing online for those of us who won’t be trick-or-treating in his neighborhood, so go, take a look.

From "Scaredcited," by Lucy Knisley

Getting into the Halloween spirit, Lucy Knisley has posted a terrific two-page comic called “Scaredcited,” a crowdsourcing experiment. “I asked my twitter followers (LucyKnisley) to send me a deep fear of theirs along with their photo in order to incorporate them into the second page,” she writes. “It’s sort-of auto-bio-for-everyone. [...] One thing that struck me as I was drawing out the page was that so many of us share specific fears. Drawing everyone in a place where we all faced our fears was really comforting. At least we’re all in it together.”

ICv2.com reports that while the traditional FCBD will still be held May 5, 2012, Diamond found interest from publishers in supporting a second, similar event on Halloween, “which has become, next to Christmas, the holiday with the most retail impact.”

Many retailers already hold kid-focused events on Halloween, with some giving away comics left over from Free Comic Book Day. Diamond has in the past encouraged stores to give away themed kid-friendly minicomics as “sugar-free safe bag stuffers.” This year’s selections include 16-page issues of Scary Godmother, Archie’s Laugh Comics, Donald Duck and The Smurfs. However, next year’s offerings will be part of a full-fledged Free Comic Book Day event.

It’s 80 degrees and sunny here on the East Coast, so getting into the Halloween mood is a bit of a stretch. Chris Cantrell’s webcomic The Deadlys, which just celebrated its first anniversary, is helping, though. It’s a gag-comic riff on the scary-family theme, although this one goes a bit farther than the Addams Family: Dad is a masked chainsaw murderer, mom is a vampire, and daughter Morgan is a teenage girl. It’s a four-panel gag comic with minimal continuity, so you can read it a bit at a time or binge as if it were a bag of Halloween candy. To sweeten the deal a bit, Cantrell is celebrating the comic’s first birthday with giveaways and extras, including a video of him drawing the comic.

Orb

Happy Halloween! We round out our series of posts on what comics from the past or present left various creators shivering under the blanket until the sun came up. To see the previous posts, go here and here.

Fred Van Lente

I had the oversized MARVEL TREASURY EDITION of MARVEL TEAM-UP when I was a kid. The panel in the Spider-Man & Ghost Rider story in which the Orb removes his helmet and shows how hideously scarred he is scared me so bad I actually cut out a square of black construction paper big enough to tape over the panel to cover it so I could read the rest of the comic without looking at it. I couldn’t have been much older than seven.

Fred Van Lente is the co-writer of Marvel’s current event series Chaos War. He’s also written Action Philosophers!, Iron Man: Legacy and Shadowland: Power Man, among other titles. If you’re looking for something in the spirit of the season, check out his Marvel Zombies work.

Jesse Blaze Snider

I gotta say that 2005′s Marvel Knight’s GHOST RIDER mini series by Garth Ennis & Clayton Crain creeped me out so bad I couldn’t finish it. It featured a character who had his head shoved up his own ass and his bend spine sticking out of his back. Now, as I type that, it sounds kind of funny. It sounds like the exact kind of thing that you would expect the mind of Garth Ennis to come up with and normally I would be right their with you enjoying the amusing sadomasochism…but NOT when it is drawn by CLAYTON CRAIN! Something about the way he illustrates gore makes it a bit too real for me and triggers my gag reflex. I think its because everything looks WET…and sticky. I contend that if Clayton drew CROSSED you would vomit every issue…sometimes more than once! There are a number of twisted demons and monsters in this series that drawn by ANY other artist would have been a simply been a clever novelty, but as serviced by Crain they are Cthulhu level horrors that will give you bad dreams for weeks.

I’m telling you, guy with his own head shoved up his ass still makes me wince, though I feel I should be laughing. That mini should have been published through the MAX imprint.

Jesse Blazer Snider has written Toy Story and Muppet Snow White for BOOM! Kids, as well as Hulk: Let the Battle Begin for Marvel. On the creepy side, he also wrote DC’s vampire series Dead Romeo and Fangoria’s Strangeland: Seven Sins.

Neil Kleid

Black Hole

Years ago, breaking into the indie comix scene with my first minicomic, I attended a Baltimore Comic-Con to shill my one measley book, meet my colleagues, get some sketches. Quickly filled a sketchbook with as many cool cartoonists as possible, but pals kept urging me to approach this guy named Charles Burns. Charles was very nice, approachable and agreed to ink something up…and the end result was fairly eerie, fairly disturbing and honestly? Kind of phallic.

But the inks, the weight of his line, captured my attention and I wanted to check out some of his work so I picked up some BLACK HOLE.

And that’s when comics broke my brain.

Don’t think I can pick a single panel or part of the collected work that I can say “that scared the crap out of me”— but the overall loneliness, desperation and horrifying mutations throughout had me squirm and shiver. BLACK HOLE is so quiet. Like a meek, bespectacled serial killer waiting at the playground, luring you in with candy and then whisking you off to his private, darkened basement dungeon. The art, the acclaim and story dazzles you like light in a deer’s eyes on a midnight highway moments before a horrifying Mack truck knocks you off your feet.

Disturbing. Hushed. Terrifying. Lonely. Phallic.

Charles Burns’ BLACK HOLE: a graphic novel best read in daylight, brother.

Neil Kleid is the writer of The Big Kahn, Ursa Minors and Brownsville. He also contributed to Dark Horse’s revived Creepy Comics and Papercutz’s Tales from the Crypt.

Rick Remender

Arkham Asylum.

“Almost idly, I wonder where her head is. And then I look at the doll house.”

“And the doll house

Looks

At

Me.”

Rick Remender is the guy who turned the Punisher into Frankenstein’s Monster, and has written a lot of other comics that fit in with today’s theme: XXXombies, Fear Agent, Strange Girl, Doctor Voodoo, Sea of Red and The Man with the Screaming Brain, just to name a few.

Vito Delsante

I’m not scared very easily. Horror movies lack suspense, and unfortunately, a lot of horror comics do as well. When you’re dealing with page turns, it’s easy to kind of…prepare yourself for the shock that’s coming. And that makes it less shocking. The horror comics that work (30 Days of Night, Sandman, etc) have great premises and they execute well, but they’re not that scary because you’re still dealing with fantastic elements (monsters, the supernatural). The scariest things out there always have to do with something real. The Walking Dead is so effective because when you see a character like the Governor, you can imagine that if the $#!& hit the fan, that guy will exist somehow. But as compelling as Walking Dead is, and as real as it is at times, it’s still not the comic that scared the crap out of me. That was Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing.

Swamp Thing is a pretty fantastic concept (a swamp monster with the mind of a man) and as far as Moore took the concept, the scariest thing in it was the Aleister Arcane arc. Flies. Everywhere you looked, flies and bugs and larvae and…

I just shuddered writing that.

Hell exists, and it looks like THAT! I hate flies, and gnats especially, so when I read that…well, let’s just say, I was in Tuscon, Arizona in the summer and it was very very hard to turn off the bzzt bzzt bzzt in my ears.

Vito Delsante is the man behind FCHS and is currently working on a comic starring Dracula as a pulp hero.

Man... or Monster? U DECIDE!

My Distinguished (and Ghoulish) Colleague said Thursday that “there is a fundamental tension between the horror and superhero genres.” Or, as I see it, when Superheroes and Horror room together, one of them winds up taking up the living room. Mania.com went further and compared the horror comics of Marvel to those of their Distinguished Competitors. They came to the conclusion that DC has a stronger horror line, mostly because of the Vertigo imprint. “We don’t normally associate Marvel with horror comics”, said Chad Derdowski . “When you hear the words ‘Marvel horror,’ you probably have to scratch your head and think about it for a bit and nearly everything you come up with is ultimately going to fall into the superhero category.”

Which is probably the best argument for Marvel having just as strong of a horror element in their titles as DC. Because let’s face it: what scares you? The idea of ghosts and goblins, or that drunk driver swerving uncomfortably on the road in front of you? What terrifies you more, the dark thoughts of a killer or the threat of unemployment? There’s horror, and there’s personal horror, and both are frightful.

Marvel’s core stories are steeped in horror. Terrible things happen with shocking results to ordinary people every day in the Marvel universe. There are terrible creatures living under your sewers called Morlocks who resent the surface world and the pretty faces that walk above them. Science and mysticism create animal men, and your best friend’s father can turn into a maniacal genius who murders your loved ones. Do I have to mention the man who rides out of Hell with a skeleton face or the Jekyll and Hyde birthed from a bomb? No, that’d be too easy. How about the (*sigh*) devils that tempt and torture man? Please, let’s just skip that one. Out of all of Marvel’s macabre tales, the most terrifying one to me is the one that wears no mask, has no superhuman powers and only works his dark will against the guilty.

Putting the impractical ‘Franken-Castle’ aside, the idea of the Punisher is a terrifying thought: a one-man army that uses anything at his disposal to see crime dead in the streets. He is the moral line that decides the wicked from the just, the executioner that dispatches who he pleases with ruthless force. He cannot be stopped from his objective. Sorry, Heroes for Hire, he’s not a team player. There are his rules and no other, and if he wants you dead, then running will only make you die tired. We have how many issues that show Frank sees evil, Frank stalks evil, and Frank murders evil in cold blood? Then we turn to the next issue to see how the next grizzly fate will be made. Civil War tried to bring him in to the superhero fold and he, in short order, shot to death two people who were surrendering. It didn’t matter that they might have wanted to cut a deal or reform, there was no trust for the criminal element and that was that. Frank’s world is black and white, and he wears a Skull as bringer of death.

Is it cool? Yes! This isn’t supernatural or the unexplained haunting your steps and leaving you breathless with scary images or dark dealings. Frank Castle as a character is a very terrifying thought. If this was real, the massacres he leaves behind would be the best fear-striking headlines the news had ever seen! We would debate his morality, talk about vigilantism, the right and effectiveness of the criminal justice system, but I promise you, the idea that Frank Castle might find you for your crimes is enough to make you lock your door at night.

But The Punisher is not considered a horror comic. He’s a guy you root for secretly, someone you want to watch “get those guys.” This all comes back to personal horror, when the monster is not chasing you, but when you are the monster and you understand the need to chase. Personal horror is a little more insidious, it works slower and it lures you into a false sense of security. Frank Castle is like any other man; he worked hard, served his country, had a wife and kid, and lost them in tragedy. Jason Voorhees drowned at camp and his mother sought hard revenge against Camp Crystal Lake. When she died, Jason himself came back to avenge them both. Jason was just a kid and now he stalks camp counselors.

But while we may thrill to his murderous rampage, you want the hero to escape. Like Tom says, you want the hero to beat the bad guy and save the day. Well, how often does that happen anymore? How many stories are left with ambiguous defeats, the villain lurking in the shadows, licking his wounds while the heroes stand united, but the battle having taken a toll? Spider-Man’s life is a mess, but the fact that he gets up every morning and puts on his suit and fights crime (with action as his reward) is inspiring and uplifting as any triumph over evil.

Superhero stories and horror stories aren’t mutually exclusive. One doesn’t have to be more capes and tights or capes and fangs than another. The key here is story: you can be a hero who is also a zombie and use elements of both to communicate your tale. Superheroes can be horrific, they can tell tales of personal horror without putting on the airs of an imprint, just as vampires can be used in the superheroic context. Look at the X-Men: in the Rise of the Mutants, Dracula and his new crew aren’t scary. You gasp as Jubillee has been taken over not because she’s a monster now, but because of survival. And in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about?

from "The Roaches"

Last year for Robot 666 Week we had a lot of fun putting together our list of six comics that scared the $#!@% out of us. So this year, we thought we’d broaden our scope and ask a few comic creators what comics scared them. Here’s the first batch; check back tomorrow and on Halloween for more!

Jimmy Palmiotti

That’s an easy one.

In 1973, I read a short story in the black and white Monsters Unleashed magazine by Thomas Disch, adapted and illustrated by Ralph Reese called “The Roaches,” about a bug-infested apartment and the woman in it…all I remember was it was illustrated in such a creepy style and all those bugs…

At the time I was living in a basement of a house that had some of the little critters from time to time, and the story freaked me out to the point I couldn’t sleep, knowing the bugs were out there ready for me to fall asleep and crawl into my ears, mouth and nose. Now that I’m talking about it, it’s creeping me out all over again.

Jimmy Palmiotti is the co-writer, with Justin Gray, of a ton of comics — Jonah Hex, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, Time Bomb and many more. If you’re looking for a comic to read this Halloween, The Last Resort is a fun, over-the-top zombie comic.

Evan Dorkin

When I was ten years old, I was stuck in the house because I was sick. My friend Michael lent me two hardbound comic collections, which were rare creatures at the time, the time being 1975. One of the books was Superman From the 30′s-70′s, the other was the 1971 Nostalgia Press anthology of EC horror, suspense and crime comics. The only thing that stuck with me from the Superman book was a Bat-Mite vs Mr Mxyzptlk story. On the other hand, almost every comic in the EC book stayed with me, and completely freaked me out, to boot. I don’t know if the book gave me nightmares, but it gave me some daymares, thinking about three stories in particular which remained in my memory for years before I became re-acquainted with the EC material: “Shoe Button Eyes” (drawn by Graham Ingels, with a script by, I believe, Johnny Craig), “Foul Play” (script by Al Feldstein, probably co-plotted with Bill Gaines, art by Jack Davis), and “Carrion Death!” (Felstein — with Gaines most likely, art by Reed Crandall).

I don’t want to describe the stories and ruin them for anyone who might want to read them for the first time, but the first is a supernatural period revenge tale revolving around spousal and child abuse, the second features one of comics’ most infamous acts of dismemberment, and the last story is a grueling survival tale of a felon handcuffed to a cop he murders in the desert. All of these stories feature super-effective art, all of them scared me as a ten-year old, and they’re still three of my favorite EC tales.

As an adult reader and creator I don’t find that horror comics can actually be scary anymore, which is a bit of a shame to find out. The best that the medium can achieve, in my opinion, is to be disturbing, or at least creepy. Towards that end I particularly like Junji Ito’s work. Uzumaki, Gyo and the Tomie stories are all wonderfully disturbing, crazy comics full of outrageous ideas, WTF moments and bizarre visuals that stay with you long after you’ve closed the book.

Evan Dorkin has created a lot of stuff for comics and television. He’s the writer of Beasts of Burden (with artist Jill Thompson) for Dark Horse and had a story in the most recent issue of Bongo’s Treehouse of Horror comic, if you’re in need of any horror comics this weekend.

Rick Lacy

The Wolves of Saint August

I can remember quite vividly being spooked out by Mike Mignola’s Wolves of Saint August. I read it in a single night and can recall how creepy and cold those wolves heads on human bodies were. I remember being grasped from the beginning by the pacing. I knew something was going to happen. I suppose we all did, but you can feel it coming in that story. Something bad was cooking. There’s a great foreboding mood in that story… then it hits you with a werewolf skinning himself out of a human body. But the werewolf kept his humanity and when killed, died slowly without remorse for what he’d done. That alone was creepy to watch. It was agonizing and astonishing. A great tale based on an old myth that legitimately scared me to boot.

Rick Lacy is the artist of Labor Days by Oni, and also works on the Venture Bros. cartoon.

Ian Brill

The scariest moment I have ever read in a comic can be found in SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING Annual #2, written by Alan Moore, art by Stephen R. Bissette and John T. Totleben. I first read it in the second trade of Moore’s SWAMP THING run.

Swamp Thing has to go to Hell to find Abby’s soul. There he meets the villain Arcane. Arcane’s time in Hell is marked by hundreds of bugs using him as a hatching ground, so his body has become swollen and grotesque. Arcane asks Swampy how many years he’s been in Hell.

Swamp Thing tells him he’s been there since yesterday.

The hatching ground screams.

Ian Brill is an editor at BOOM! Studios, where he also writes Darkwing Duck and the upcoming Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers.

Thom Zahler

For me it was Tomb of Dracula #32. My parents would buy both my brother and I each a comic every week. John picked Tomb of Dracula #32, which I couldn’t understand. There were perfectly good issues of Superman and Justice League on the rack. Sometimes I think he picked the comics he knew I wouldn’t like.

And he was right. I mean look at it. Big scary Dracula jumping in to kill an old guy in a wheelchair, shouting “…tonight is the night you die!” Even the coloring was scary. Dracula’s lit with blue light coming from the side. It’s a little thing, but it was so unnatural, and the first time I remember seeing that.

Read it? Are you kidding? Wasn’t the cover enough?

Eventually, weeks later, I sneaked a peak at a page or two at a time, and always during the daytime. I remember Dracula being attacked by a dog and the dog’s collar having silver crosses, burning his hands. There were all sorts of traps and gadgets like that, and none of them really stopped them.

I can’t remember how it ended, but I know I read that far, because one of the scariest parts was that Dracula wasn’t killed at the end. Monster movies had the vampire get killed at the end, but this book… he got away to do more horrible vampire things, and he couldn’t be stopped. Heck, there was going to be another issue. And another after that.

But not for me. I didn’t buy another issue, and for some reason, neither did John. Maybe it scared him, too.

Until, eventually I checked out the Marvel Essentials collection. It was probably a good thing that Young Me never read those stories. Current Me, though, loved the heck out of them.

Thom Zahler is the creator of Love & Capes, which was previously self-published and will soon be coming out from IDW.

Kerry Callen

When I was a kid, my brother brought home an old, beat up copy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not #25. I don’t where he got it. The cover was a painting of “Spring-Heal Jack”. As far as I remember, I had never seen a comic with a painted cover. It hit me as something I might see in a grade school history book, which seemed to validate Jack’s possible existence. The issue contained several stories, including one with a scary harpy/bat/witch, but Spring-Heal Jack had the most effect on me. The story contained only mystifying incidents with no real wrap-up. Plus, he apparently didn’t wear pants. I found it all terrifying, and I couldn’t help but imagine him jumping over tombstones whenever I was in a cemetery. Brrrrr.

Kerry Callen is the creator of Halo & Sprocket, published by SLG Publishing.

Vampire Batman

There is a fundamental tension between the horror and superhero genres. Clearly the two aren’t incompatible, but in the stories which blend them, often one genre will dominate. At the risk of gross oversimplification, there’s no guarantee of a horror story having a happy ending; whereas superhero stories are generally about saving the day. Put another way, superheroes generally stop monsters.

Such was the case with 1991′s graphic novel Batman & Dracula: Red Rain, in which the Lord of Vampires comes to Gotham City. Red Rain was written by longtime Bat-scribe Doug Moench, boasted the distinctively eerie pencils of Kelley Jones, and polished off its sinister, downbeat mood through Malcolm Jones III’s inks, Les Dorscheid’s colors, and Todd Klein’s letters. SPOILERS FOLLOW … but is not much of a spoiler to note that Batman defeats Dracula, because a) that is what Batman does, and b) Tomb of Dracula notwithstanding, that is how Drac usually winds up. Furthermore, Red Rain was far from the Darknight Detective’s only run-in with more malevolent creatures of the night, because he’d been fighting vampires and werewolves as far back as 1939′s Detective Comics #30.

No, what makes Red Rain and its two sequels different is their overwhelming sense of doom. Red Rain is a superhero horror story which eventually turns Batman’s world inside-out more than any traditional deconstruction ever could.

* * *

Red Rain’s Batman trappings are fairly familiar. It’s an anything-goes Elseworlds, but it’s not an Elseworlds where (for example) Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed by vampires, Gotham is a Romanian castle, and/or the world is dominated by dark magic. By all indications, this Batman is pretty much the same one from the regular monthly comics, and may in fact be more skeptical about the true nature of his foe than “our” Batman would be about such things. This approach reinforces the sense that the story will play by “superhero” rules. Paradoxically, though, because the name Dracula carries such weight, it hints that Batman and his allies don’t quite get how hard their task will be.

The plot is straightforward. Dracula plans a “harvest of Gotham,” so his onetime disciple Tanya recruits Batman. Tanya has weaned herself off human blood by creating a synthetic substitute, but she still has all the traditional vampire powers, and appears first to Bruce Wayne as a dreamlike apparition. Of course, Tanya is really making more substantive visits to Bruce’s bedroom, with predictable results. In his final confrontation with Dracula, Batman has the strength and abilities of a vampire, but the fight still takes a terrible toll. Although Dracula’s body has been immolated, while impaled on a giant spike of dead oak, Batman has lost a tremendous amount of blood; and Alfred discovers his master motionless on the forest floor. Later, Alfred explains that there was “no spark of life” within Batman — but the reanimated hero clarifies that he is dead. More specifically, “Bruce Wayne may be gone … but the Batman will go on … forever.” In Red Rain’s last panel, he flashes his fangs for emphasis.

While the image of a vampire Batman is shocking, it’s not unique to Red Rain. “Our” Batman was transformed into a vampire in and around September 1982′s Batman #351, and was cured with Robin’s help. Again, though, that was the regular series. Red Rain is free to leave Batman in a vastly different place than where it found him. In order to destroy Dracula’s hordes, Batman and Tanya lure them into the Batcave, where they’re exposed to sunlight when Batman blows up Wayne Manor. Similarly, whatever “normal” part of Batman which is expressed through Bruce is likewise obliterated by the end of Red Rain.

This becomes a critical element of the second book, 1994′s Bloodstorm.* In it we see that Batman is no longer satisfied by Tanya’s blood substitute (Tanya herself having died for good in Red Rain), and he’s struggling with the need to feed even as he relishes eliminating Gotham’s underworld. Meanwhile, the still-human Joker gathers his own vampiric gang; and Alfred and Commissioner Gordon wonder when they’ll have to destroy their undead friend.

Bloodstorm postulates that Batman’s salvation is personified by — surprise! — Selina Kyle, who in this version of events was never Catwoman, but who (naturally) is transformed into a were-cat by one of Gotham’s new monsters. In fact, none of the usual sanctified defenses (e.g., crosses and holy water) repel the vampire Batman. With Selina to take his mind off dietary concerns, Batman hasn’t tasted human blood, and his heart remains pure. Unfortunately, Selina ends up taking a wooden crossbow bolt the Joker meant for Batman, and her death drops Batman over the edge. In his fury he snaps the Joker’s neck, drinks the villain’s blood, and stakes the madman before he too can become a vampire. Batman then returns to his crypt and leaves Alfred a note: “[d]o not fail me when I need you most.” Alfred and Gordon each drive stakes into Batman, ostensibly giving him eternal peace ….

… but we know better, because 1999′s Crimson Mist** finds Gotham once again overrun with horrific interpretations of Batman’s rogues’ gallery. With Killer Croc, the Riddler, Poison Ivy, the Scarecrow, and Two-Face wreaking havoc, and Alfred plagued by nightmares, the Waynes’ ex-butler wrenches the stake from Batman’s body. Alfred had figured that because Batman’s only victim was the Joker, he hadn’t gone over completely to the dark side; but the red-eyed Batman explains angrily that the stake was the only thing keeping Batman’s heart from pumping the Joker’s evil blood. Even so, Batman sets some boundaries, only slaughtering the super-criminals and the inmates of Arkham Asylum.

Appropriately enough, Crimson Mist’s climax finds everyone in the ruins of the Batcave, where once again Gordon, Alfred, and their involuntary allies Two-Face and Killer Croc try to blow a big enough skylight in the cavern’s ceiling. However, the fight with Croc leaves Batman too weakened to take on Two-Face, who’s turned on Gordon. To save Gordon’s life, Alfred volunteers his own blood to replenish Batman’s strength. It all ends up with Gordon and Batman locked in a deadly struggle, Batman simultaneously offering Gordon a chance to rule at his side and indicating how horrible that fate would be. “Kill me now … or help me exterminate the human race!” the vampire cries. Gordon sets off the explosives — but they’re only powerful enough to crush the Commissioner under a massive boulder. Finally, having killed (or contributed to the death of) pretty much everyone around him, including all Gotham’s other superhuman evildoers, Batman walks into the sunlight, disintegrating as he goes, embracing “the unknown fate of nothingness.”

* * *

Therefore, it’s fair to describe the “Vampire Batman” trilogy as one of many alternate realities where everyone dies. Certainly Moench, Jones, et al., aren’t afraid of taking “what if Batman were a vampire?” to an extremely bloody and tragic conclusion.  Furthermore, it’s clear that the vampire Batman was thisclose to putting a whole new set of supernatural tricks in his formidable arsenal. Red Rain ends with Batman physically changed but morally intact (pretty much); and if the Joker hadn’t killed the Cat-Woman, the trilogy (had there even been a third book) might have been vastly different.

It’s just as clear, though, that Moench and Jones wanted Vampire Batman to be, well, vastly different from the regular version — and, in the end, pretty repulsive to boot. I’m pretty sure Bruce Wayne only appears unmasked in Red Rain, and for much of Crimson Mist Batman is hardly human, slaughtering criminals as a literal bat-creature. Indeed, as Bruce goes, so go the “superhero rules” by which Red Rain initially seems to play. The true horror of Red Rain is the realization that it was never a superhero story — that Bruce/Batman, for all his intellect and planning, has been drawn inevitably and irrevocably into the waking nightmare of the undead.

Of course, between Red Rain and Bloodstorm, Moench would go on to write Bruce out of the regular Bat-books for a while, replacing the wheelchair-bound billionaire with a hyper-violent apprentice. Still, Vampire Batman is not really the kind of cautionary “be careful what you wish for” tale that “Knightquest” and “KnightsEnd” were. For one thing, the work of Jones and the inkers and colorists is simply too visceral to put a “cool” sheen on all the carnage. These books succeed admirably at being scary, and at depicting a Bat-world gone beyond all sense of sanity. The Joker’s style recalls the classic silent film London After Midnight, and the question mark stitched across the Riddler’s face prefigures Colin Farrell’s Bullseye makeup. It’s an aesthetic few other artists could match, and it sells the story immensely.

Regardless, this is hardly a pleasant story. By the end of Crimson Mist the narrative threatens to descend into pulpish penny-dreadful territory, shocking for its own sake. Even Batman’s final sacrifice, noble as it is, comes as the last act of a creature desperate to escape any more torment. Crimson Mist itself is somewhat redundant, if not gratuitous, considering that the previous book ended with Gordon, Alfred, and Batman similarly situated.  The overarching message is that there is no escape from, or cure for, vampirism — which, presumably, is meant as an extension of the dark tightrope the regular Batman walks.

Thus, the tragedy of Vampire Batman isn’t that he was consumed by evil, it’s that he was doomed practically from the start. Red Rain, Bloodstorm, and Crimson Mist paint an apocalyptic picture of the end of Batman’s career, as a superhero is literally transformed into a demonic avenger, eradicating all Gotham’s monsters … including himself.

+++++++++++++++++++

* [Bloodstorm was inked by John Beatty.]

** [Crimson Mist was inked by Beatty and colored by Gregory Wright.]

Something spooky this way comes: Over on the Fantagraphics website, you can find previews and pre-order info for a pair of creepy kids comics from European comics superstars. First up is Toys in the Basement from Blab! mainstay Stéphane Blanquet, about a kid who shows up for a friend’s Halloween party in an embarrassing bunny costume, only to get stranded in the basement with a secret society of very pissed-off toys. Fanta puts it this way: “Imagine Toy Story as reimagined by David Lynch and Charles Burns and you’ll have a good idea of what this story is like. And yes, it is for kids!” Sold!

Next up is The Littlest Pirate King by Epileptic genius David B., adapted from a story by Pierre Mac Orlan. In this tale, a baby is adopted as the mascot for a crew of undead pirates, but things change as he grows up. Fanta notes that this will be David B.’s first full-color graphic novel to be released in English, and that alone makes it worth the price of admission even if you don’t enjoy pirate skeletons, in which case I don’t wanna know you anyway. All-ages meets All Hallow’s Eve!

Cullen Bunn

For the past three years at Halloween, The Sixth Gun writer Cullen Bunn has written a horror story starring a charming old woman named Mrs. Friedly. This year, to help us celebrate Robot 666 Week, Bunn sent us all three of the previous Mrs. Friedly tales to share with our readers, along with a brand new one that we’ll debut right here on Halloween.

So a big thanks to Bunn and Mrs. Friedly for sharing their Halloween with us. Check out the first tale below, then check back Wednesday, Friday and of course on Halloween to read more.

Gone Fishin’
By Cullen Bunn

“Another year,” Mrs. Friedly piped, “another Halloween Festival!”

The Elk Ridge Community Center was decorated with paper jack o’lanterns, dancing skeletons, and dozens of orange and black streamers. Children in costume—goblins and witches, vampires and ghouls, princesses and ninjas—scurried around the large chamber, and their laughter and squeals formed a constant din.

Mrs. Friedly clucked her tongue as she watched the children. Maybe she was old-fashioned, but some of the costumes just didn’t seem very… Halloweeny… to her. Ghouls and ghosts and monsters—those were fine. But the princesses and cowboys and monkeys just didn’t seem to fit the spirit of the occasion. Halloween, as the elderly woman saw it, was supposed to be a spooky night.

What on earth, she thought, is a ninja anyway?

The festivities were in full swing. Music swelled as a group of older children (and more than a few parents) took part in a cake walk. Screams and giggles rose from the make-shift haunted house the local Industrial Arts club was putting on behind the curtain on the auditorium stage. Groups of kids were playing Pass the Pumpkin and Candy Corn Catch. All around the perimeter of the massive chamber were small booths featuring all sorts of attractions and games. Fortune tellers, face painting, apple bobbing—there was something for everyone. There was even a kissing booth, sponsored by the Elk Ridge High School cheerleaders, and the line of teenage boys waiting for a smooch was impressive.

A pudgy little boy approached Mrs. Friedly’s booth.

“What’s this all about?” he asked.

Mrs. Friedly looked the boy over in disappointment. His only attempt to get into the spirit of Halloween was to wear a t-shirt that read, “This IS my costume!” Still, she forced a sweet smile.

“This is the fish pond.” She motioned to the curtain wall behind her. The curtain was decorated with dozens of swimming fish, many with sharp, fearsome-looking teeth. “You cast a line over the curtain and fish for a prize.”

“What kind of prize?”

Mrs. Friedly eyed the boys round belly and smiled. “Usually something good to eat!”

“I’ll give it a try,” the boy said.

Mrs. Friedly giggled happily. “Oh, goody!”

The boy looked around the booth. His brow furrowed. “Where are the fishing poles?”

Just then, he noticed something large moving behind the curtain. It was the shape and size of a gorilla, but the head was misshapen and covered in what might have been wriggling snakes. The grotesque figure made awful grunting sounds as it approached.

“W-what’s that?” the boy asked.

He had his answer soon enough. The shadowy figure moved behind the curtain. A fishing line dropped down next to Mrs. Friedly. At the end of the line was a large, rusty hook. Mrs. Friedly grabbed the hook. Without a second’s hesitation, she flicked her wrist and drove the hook through the flesh of the boy’s mouth.

The boy screeched and trembled, pulled at the hook and flailed.

Mrs. Friedly looked around. No one else seemed to notice.

The elderly woman gave the fishing line two quick tugs. The line was quickly retracted, and the little boy was hoisted up. He vanished over the top of the curtain. The last Mrs. Friedly saw of him was his kicking legs flopping over the edge.

Mrs. Friedly smiled and hummed to herself as she waited for her next customer. Within a few minutes, she saw a princess walking her way, and she felt a little rush of Halloween excitement.

End

From 'Swamp Thing: Anatomy Lesson'

Next Sunday is Halloween, and in celebration, we’re kicking off our second annual Robot 666 week, seven days of horror-filled fun. All this week, in addition to our regular blogging, we’ll look at the scarier side of comics, with horror-themed columns, scary stories and appearances by special “spooky” guests.

So stay tuned today as we get into the spirit of the season later today!

from House of Mystery Halloween Annual #1

I mentioned this in Food or Comics? yesterday, but thought it was worth mentioning again (esp. since Vertigo posted a preview on their blog today) … although it was originally solicited with Jill Thompson on art, the Madame Xanadu tale in this year’s House of Mystery Halloween Annual is actually Matt Wagner and King City creator Brandon Graham. It’s kind of like finding out the house next door isn’t handing out candy this year (boo!), but they did make popcorn balls (yay!).

Wagner and Graham join Matthew Sturges, Peter Milligan, Luca Rossi, Mike Carey, Peter Gross and more in contributing to the anthology. It arrives in shops today.

Teen Hallowe'en

Because “nothin says Hallowe’en like teens being punks and throwing shit.”

LaMorte Sisters

This month Johnny Zito and Tony Trov, creators of the Black Cherry Bombshells, added a second Zuda strip to their writing duties — LaMorte Sisters, drawn by Christine Larsen. The story follows Maddie, a new student at the LaMorte Home for Lost Girls. The orphanage is run by a strict order of Catholic nuns who offer sanctuary and salvation to young women afflicted with vampirism.

Zito and Trov stopped by earlier this week and shared a list of vampires they’d like to have drinks with, and with today being the second anniversary of when Zuda officially launched, plus it being the day before Halloween, it kind of made sense to see what they had to say about their new vampire tale.

JK: One of the things that really struck me about the first pages of your new strip is how different it looks than Black Cherry Bombshells. How did you guys meet Christine Larsen?

Johnny: Christine is a fellow Philadelphian. She lives on the other end of the city in Fishtown.

Tony: We have many, many mutual friends in the art and film community. Johnny and I were both fans of her work on Teddy Scares.

LaMorte Sisters

JK: What’s the new strip about?

Tony: The story follows Maddie, a new student at LaMorte Home for Lost Girls. The orphanage is run by a strict order of Catholic Nuns. They offer sanctuary and salvation to young women afflicted with vampirism.

Johnny: La Morte Sisters is a much more personal story for us. It’s about South Philly, frienemies and growing up fast.

Tony: This is especially true for me, being Zito’s public frienemy No. 1.

LaMorte Sisters

JK: I like the “twist,” that these vampires are living in a Catholic School. Where did that idea come from? And did either of you attend Catholic School?

Tony: We both did some hard time in Catholic school. Although we attended different schools, I did eight years and JZ did 12.

Johnny: There were always creepy urban legends about statues coming to life, dead janitors and saints that walk the halls at night.

LaMorte Sisters

JK: I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that since you guys teamed up with Zuda again on this one that you probably like it there. What’s the appeal of having your second strip there, versus going somewhere else or out on your own?

Johnny: Aside from the creative support Zuda provides, I champion any product or business that starts with a “Z.” Say … pass the Zima.

Tony: The staff is great. Ron Perazza (@perazza) would let me use his toothbrush if I asked. All of our fellow creators are full of fantastic advice, too.

Johnny: Yeah, follow the hash tag #makingcomics. Lots of great advice from Zuda staff, creators and even readers.

JK: What was the process like to become an instant winner?

Johnny: Start with a clove of garlic, a statue of Saint Joseph and eight screens of amazing art. Wait for the summer solstice, or it won’t work.

Tony: Then head over to ZudaComics.com and submit your brilliant ideas. Every comic on Zuda goes through the same submission process, but it doesn’t hurt to say your prayers.

JK: What are you guys doing for Halloween? Any plans to dress up?

Johnny: Raphael. Cool but crude.

Tony: Shredder. Tonight I dine on turtle soup.

Johnny: Frienemy indeed.

The Great Pumpkin, by J. Bone

The talented J. Bone uses the holiday classic It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as the springboard for a couple of hilarious and, of course, well-drawn gags. (Warning: In the second cartoon, Charlie Brown employs off-color language!)

Poor, poor Linus …

Mike Ploog's Perhapanauts cover

With the Halloween-themed fun we’re having this week at Robot 666 (aka Robot 6)–it seemed like the perfect time to talk to Todd Dezago about the recently released Perhapanauts Halloween Spooktacular One-Shot (featuring stories drawn by the likes of Craig Rousseau, Rich Woodall and Fred Hembeck). Normally in an interview with Dezago, I would characterize him as one of the nicest folks in comics. But in the spirit of the Halloween season, I instead choose to characterize him as the most paranormal-fascinated person in comics. In addition to the one shot (with three stories in it)–we discuss other spooky topics like volleyball and iTunes. You are warned!

Tim O’Shea: Is it apt to say that Halloween is about your favorite time of the year, given your affinity for the paranormal?

Todd Dezago: Oh, Halloween definitely holds a special place in my heart, both for memories of Halloweens past and for the spooky, scary, creepy haunted element!

And I love that we were able to put together this fun and, hopefully, frightening anthology featuring very different artists on very different stories!

O’Shea: What’s the story behind the blog’s PERHAPANAUTS SCARY HALLOWEEN CONTEST?

Dezago: Craig and I have a very loyal following on the Perhapa-Blog–our Perhapa-Family–and it’s always a treat to get a chance to see them bringing their talents and creativity to the stage! The Perhapanauts Scary Halloween Contest is a chance for others to play with our team, to write or draw or do a comic page or two with the characters and show everyone else their stuff! And we have some very talented friends!

O’Shea: Do folks have to be regular Perhapanauts readers to enjoy this Halloween issue or can folks new to the characters enjoy it just as much?

Dezago: No, I think you can jump right in and don’t need to know anything about the team or the characters or the continuity to enjoy this. Hopefully, if you’re not familiar with The Perhapanauts, this issue will pique your curiosity enough to swing by the website and check them out.

O’Shea: Were there certain story shifts you were able to take with the characters in this Halloween setting that you would not normally attempt in the regular book’s continuity?

Dezago: Just doing separate stories apart from the continuity was refreshing. I’ve been so focused on the story arcs so much, building to finally be able to tell these kind of separate, solo, or side-stories–case files–that I now feel that the stories can finally take off from there! It’s more liberating! And more fun!

O’Shea: In terms of art, is this the first time you’ve worked with Fred Hembeck? Also how did the Mike Ploog cover come about?

Dezago: Fred and I have been friends for, like, forever! We’d played volleyball together for years and always wanted to work on some things together! This was our first chance to actually do a story together and, even though we’re pals, it was just so exciting to see him bring his own brand of magic and squiggly knees to the ‘Haps!

My pal, Roger Ash, hooked me up with Mike Ploog while he was interviewing Mike for his Modern Masters book. When Roger suggested we ask Mike for a cover, Craig and I were floored at the prospect, both of us being such huge fans of Mike’s work–Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night, Abadazad, The Stardust Kid…Mike was so very nice to talk with and exceeded our expectations with his wonderful cover!

O’Shea: How many comic pros do you play volleyball with?

Dezago: Back in the late 90s/early 2Ks, I played volleyball with a legendary group of comic book artists and writers every Tuesday night in the town of Woodstock. I had been at a small comics convention in Kingston and had been befriended by Ron Marz, Fred Hembeck, and Terry Austin and invited to join the group. When I got there I was stunned to see heroes like Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson were part of the gang too! We’d always play hard for a few hours and then go out and have dinner! It was great fun–fast-paced games and good times! I still play every Monday night with Jim, but the rest have all been scattered around the country now.

O’Shea: Other than this issue, of course, care to rank your favorite Halloween comic stories?

Dezago: Well, I’ve gotta go to that early 70s Batman story that was based, I’ve heard, mostly on a trip that a bunch of the young DC writers and artists (Bernie, Len Wein, Glynis Oliver, Denny O’Neil, I think…) took to Vermont for the Rutland Halloween Parade. It’s one of Denny and Neal’s stories–the one with the guy that dresses like the Grim Reaper–and it’s just so dark and moody! I also just love Keith Giffen and Ben Roman’s “i luv halloween” book that came out a couple years ago from Tokyo Pop. It’s both fun and creepy!

O’Shea: What’s the biggest challenge of orchestrating a project like this–with three different stories for one issue?

Dezago: Ha! It should have been a lot easier than it was! I initially had hoped to have this issue out last Halloween and thought it was gonna happen. But it ended up conflicting with our own schedule and continuity, so we pushed it to this year. The coordination was, in many ways, easier as we had three different artists working at once–it just meant having to shepherd each one along at it’s own rate. It all went relatively smoothly and, now that we’re shifting to a mini-series schedule, Craig and I intend to get the books out faster by bringing in more great artists for more great side-stories!

O’Shea: How long has the Perhapanauts been available through iTunes–and what’s response been like for the app?

Dezago: The Haps app (as Craig and I call it here in the Perhapa-Studios… : ) has been available for a few weeks now and we really haven’t heard about numbers on downloads and such. We’re just thrilled to have it out there and hope people will pick it up and show their friends! It–and Tellos–both look absolutely fantastic on the app and, as the issues play out, hopefully we can get more and more people showing their friends.

O’Shea: Unlike some creators, you seem to encourage folks to do fan fiction with the Perhapanauts-why?

Dezago: Our whole plan for the Perhapanauts from square one was to create a team of characters and a paradigm where we could tell really any kind of story we wanted. And, after 14 issues or so, we’ve finally maneuvered things to be able to do just that. In our last story arc, the Perhapanauts became the guardians of the Perhaps, our version of the nexus of all time and space and the doorway to every conceivable alternate reality, what if or elseworld. You wanna story where the Perhapanauts are in the old west…? We can do that! You wanna see the team visit medieval times…? That can happen! They have access to EVERYTHING! And so should YOU. We love to see other people’s versions of our gang and read other people’s stories to see where their imaginations want to take the Perhapanauts! It’s fun!

O’Shea: What’s ahead for the Perhapanauts series?

Dezago: We have a one-shot coming out in February or March called “Molly’s Story” which tells the tale of how our ghost became a ghost, written by Scott Weinstein and me and art by Jason Copland. It looks great! And then, a few months later, we’ll be kicking off the first official miniseries and the next story arc, The Perhapanauts: Fourshadowing, which will be both a great jumping on point and the revelation of quite a few of our long-standing mysteries. And that will be quickly followed by a three part anthology series called Tales From the Perhaps, full of fun short tales of this reality and beyond.