Creepshow #4 - Image Comics

CREEPSHOW No. 4, December 2022

Containing two vastly contrasting “all-new standalone stories”, there’s still arguably not a great deal for Creepsters to enjoy inside this twenty-two-page periodical. Sure, Kyle Starks’ opening fright fest “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are” initially shows some terrific potential by capturing the feel of both Joel Schumacher’s 1987 horror film “The Lost Boys” and Stephen King’s award-winning novel “It”. But disappointingly the narrative soon becomes incredibly sedentary once three of the “ragtag group of kids” are fatally bitten by the neighbourhood’s vampires, and the sole-survivor spends the next twenty-five years of her life sat inside her home in total isolation.

Sadly, this sudden change of tempo can’t even be saved by Fran Galan’s artwork, which having been packed full of pace during the unwise adolescents’ flight from Mesker Woods, suddenly lapses into a succession of panels depicting a now rather rotund SkinnyNancy81 tied to her computer desk conversing with faceless ‘friends’ over the internet. Pencilling so lack-lustre a life certainly helps sell the author’s plot that the woman has completely removed herself from the real world so as to keep her safe from the blood-drinkers at her doorstep. However, many readers of this comic may well have preferred for the writer to have shown more of the energetic build-up to the gang’s ill-advised hunt or possibly have extended their sad demises rather than this somewhat soulless ending.

Infinitely livelier is “La Mascara De La Muerte” by Henry Barajas, which ultimately turns into a seriously gratuitous depiction of mutilation within the squared circle as a wrestling champion quite literally tears off her face to end a demonic curse. The notion of a would-be winner selling their soul so as to reach the top of their profession’s ladder is hardly new. Yet, the Latinx author adds some intriguing elements into the mix with Dragon Roja’s legendary father having been similarly cursed for desiring greatness; “I’m sorry I lied to you all these years, Mija. But the truth was too painful --”

Sadly, what debatably lets this tale down are Dani’s layouts, which many a bibliophile will doubtless find somewhat difficult to navigate. The illustrator’s splodgy style makes some of this yarn’s panels rather indistinct, especially during the flashback to when Lupe’s parent became a murdering psychopath “after he won the belt”. Albeit the scene of the victorious female wrestler desperately ripping her cursed mask from her head, flesh and all, is plain for all to see, and will doubtless give anyone witnessing the grotesque event nightmares for weeks.

Writers: Kyle Starks and Henry Barajas, and Artists: Fran Galan and Dani