Creepshow [2023] #3 - Image Comics

CREEPSHOW No. 3, November 2023

Disconcertingly delivered like something out of “Tharg's Future Shocks” than the American comedy horror anthology franchise, Zoe Thorogood’s space-age saga “Eternity, Eternity, Eternity” probably caused a fair bit of consternation to those anticipating a ghoulish tale from beyond the grave. Indeed, arguably the ten-page tale’s sole connection with George A. Romero’s popular series is the obligatory brief inclusion of the Creep as narrator, and several buckets worth of gruesome bodily dismemberment; “With nothing left, I began to deconstruct. Life had won. I lay on the ash covered wasteland I once called home.”

To make matters worse though, the comic creator’s pencilling doesn’t arguably add all that much dynamic life to her adventure about an immortal woman getting thoroughly bored with living forever either, courtesy of some rather flat-looking panels with empty backgrounds. This artistic style does admittedly have its moments, most notably at the story’s start when scientist loses her pet cat and husband through unhappy circumstances. But by the time the illustrator’s main protagonist has injected herself with “only one viable dose of serum” and plucked out an eye in frustration at its singular effect, the sole purpose of many a subsequent picture appears to simply be to shock the audience with another gawdy show of self-mutilation.

Much more mesmerising is “Sacrifices” by Joel Farrelly, which does a cracking job in combining a modern-day crime thriller with a Cthulhu-like deep sea deity. Persistently twisting and turning, the ‘subversive comedian’ repeatedly keeps his audience on the edge of their seats, even when the narrative’s major mobster sniffs out his wife’s treachery and unsurprisingly intercepts professional thief Eddie before the light-fingered rogue can escape off his luxurious ocean-liner with a highly-valuable red diamond.

Admirably helping to sell this tentacle-filled yarn is Goran Sudzuka, whose design for the giant crab creature Ag’Biknoir appears to have been delightfully snatched straight out of the pages of either a H. P. Lovecraft or Jules Vern novel. Furthermore, the Croatian does an excellent job in quickly shifting Berkman’s facial fury in not getting his jewel “by midnight tonight” over to sheer insanity, once the crook realises his god has already come for its sacrifice and he has nothing more to look forward to in life than a brain-splattering thump from a gigantic antsy appendage.

Writers: Zoe Thorogood and Joel Farrelly, and Artists: Zoe Thorogood and Goran Sudzuka