Horror Comics #30 - Antarctic Press Comics

HORROR COMICS No. 30, November 2023

Described by its San Antonio-based publisher as a “time-travelling horror” story containing “science-spawned monsters”, Dino Caruso and Shawn Richison’s narrative for “Origin Point” is arguably as good as such frightening fiction can get. Sure, it may take readers a moment or two to acclimatise themselves to colorist Paul Little’s dark-hued palette. But once they’ve become accustomed to the disconcertingly dreary surroundings of Doctor Liebrandt’s out-of-the-way lock-up and realise the struck-off surgeon is ferrying human corpses about on a trolley, this comic’s claustrophobic atmosphere becomes all the more palpable; “I realise it’s not the nicest part of town.”

Indeed, the motivation behind the former GENesis Labs employee is probably the first thing to grab the audience’s undivided attention. For despite his illegal underground workshop apparently about to be imminently hit by a squad of heavily-armed Special Forces, the man appears disturbingly unperturbed; casually stacking up a handful of carcasses upon a pushcart and then calming walking the cadavers across to where a fellow scientist is frantically finishing last minute repairs to her own invention.

The sheer volume of questions this bizarre behaviour raises in the mind should immediately grab any fright-fest fan’s interest, and subsequently help carry them on through the twenty-page periodical’s plot as more and more intriguing characters are added to the cast. Furthermore, the fact that one particularly shadowy soul suggests he’s somehow come back from the past to finally meet his “father” will surely raise the hackles on the neck of even the most cold-blooded of bibliophiles.

Probably this book’s best moment though, is the shockingly savage demise of the aforementioned police tactical team, who initially foolishly feel this “mystery-science-junk” assault is going to be a total waste of their precious time. Artist JC Grande does a good job in helping this comic’s writing team imbue a few of the troopers with all the arrogant indifference twenty years of gun-toting survival in such a high-pressure role might bring. And as a result, when the illustrator suddenly prodigiously pencils the squad being literally torn apart by a viciously-fanged ghoul, many holding this publication in their hands may well startlingly feel the overconfident gunmen are simply receiving their just deserts.

Writers: Dino Caruso & Shawn Richison, Illustrator: J.C. Grande, and Colors: Paul Little