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Book Review: Welcome to the Splatter Club, Vol. 1, edited by K. Trap Jones

Welcome to the Splatter Club, Vol. 1, by various authors, edited by K. Trap Jones

Blood Bound Publishing, 2020

ISBN: 9781940250434

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition  ( Amazon.com )

 

The main thing Welcome to the Splatter Club has in common with its sequel (Welcome to the Splatter Club, Vol. 2, previously reviewed here) is the high level of originality.  The thirteen stories are quite loopy, and are all over the place for plotlines.  However, it is an uneven collection: as good as the ideas are, a number of the stories don’t have enough bang and pop to keep the reader interested and the pages flipping at a quick speed.  The first half of the book is clearly the better half. The best stories include:

 

“23 to 46”: the most original, the most entertaining, and also the funniest.  The sperm housed in Matt’s balls suddenly start talking to him, and make his life impossible for the rest of the story.  They are mad he isn’t reproducing, and Matt has no interest in kids.  This is a hilarious romp that gives new meaning to the term ‘body politics.’

 

“The Woman in the Ditch”: A rural area legend, the blond woman only appears swimming in the ditch alongside country roads when there is enough rain, and of course it only happens in certain years.  What does she want?  Go to her and find out…but it may not be what you desire.  This could almost be a dark version of a Disney fairy tale.  

 

“Code Black”: Tired of juveniles committing heinous crimes and getting away with them due to an overly liberal justice system?  So are the people of Trapper Valley, especially when a kid unleashes a monster from the Abyss.  However, this town has Code Black…which will do what the justice system won’t.  

 

“Dickey Dykstra”: Ever wanted to beat the tar out of your boss, just because he’s a total jackass?  So does a certain employee, but his boss, the aforementioned Dickey, has problems WAY bigger than being a dick at work.  Let’s just say they involve hobbyhorses, and prepare yourself for the unexpected.  When Dickey’s secret comes to light, he makes Leatherface seem like a normal, well-adjusted human being.

 

“The Big Bad Boy”: We all know that Twinkies, Snowballs, and Ho-Hos are never going to be found in the FDA’s food pyramid for a balanced diet, but what happens when they really will kill you?  One poor convenience store clerk is going to find out.

 

There are a few other good ones, but there’s also a chunk of stories that just don’t quite do it.  When it’s good, it’s quite good, but the lackluster ones are frustrating.  If you’re on the fence about buying this, just go for Vol. 2 in the series instead, which is a “can’t miss” collection of stories.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

 

Posted on March 21, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Jedi Summer by John Boden

Cover art for Jedi Summer by John Boden

Jedi Summer by John Boden

Cemetery Dance Publications, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1587678356

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

 

Jedi Summer is a fictionalized coming-of-age memoir by John Boden, taking place in 1983, the summer Return of the Jedi came out, when Boden was 12 and his brother Roscoe was 7. It meanders through a summer filled with the brothers playing, fighting, and just living through their days. Boden’s mother worked several jobs and he was both responsible for and unpleasant to Roscoe in the way siblings can be. Boden reflects on how his perspective has changed since then. Stylistically he uses italicized text in brackets for digressions. This would work in oral storytelling (it reminded me a bit of Donald Davis) but disrupts the flow on the page.

 

There are three additional stories. “Possessed by a Broken Window” is a powerful piece on grief and guilt.”Trick” is relatable to anyone who has meant to call someone important but never quite does. “The One Who Closes the Door”, a story about caretaking for the adults of your childhood, will stick with me for a long time.

 

The fictionalized darker and supernatural events that take place during the story range from gentle (Boden’s brother can see and interact with the ghosts of dead pets) to believable (a Ferris wheel that crashes to the ground) to the gruesome (a dead man hanging from a tree whose body has been turned into a birdhouse). Even without these, the story of these boys on summer vacation with plenty of time and imagination, and the pieces at the end, are worth reading.

 

Posted on March 18, 2023 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: The EC Archives: Terror Illustrated edited by Daniel Chabon, original series editor William M. Gaines

Cover art for EC Archives: Terror Illustrated

The EC Archives: Terror Illustrated edited by Daniel Chabon, original series editor William M. Gaines

Dark Horse, 2022

ISBN-13: 9781506719788

Available: Kindle edition, hardcover ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

The EC Archives: Terror Illustrated includes illustrated prose stories of terror, murder, and the supernatural with works by Al Feldstein (also writing under Alfred E. Neuman), Jack Davis, Joe Orlando, Johnny Craig, and more! This collection also features the never printed third issue, and a foreword by Mick Garris. The book, advertised as “Picto-Fiction,” contains illustrated stories rather than a traditional comic.

 

I’m going to start out this review with the negative. There are some problematic stories in this volume, the worst of them being “Mother Love” by Maxwell Williams and illustrated by Charles Sultan, and “The Long Wait” by Alfred E. Neuman and illustrated by Johnny Craig. In “Mother Love,” Leona’s father sells her to a brute named Clint as a bride. She is endlessly abused and tormented, and rape is alluded to in this story. She is described as no smarter than a toddler, and lines like “Not that Leona thought of her life as a horror. Her mind was not capable of that” made this hard to get through. It gets worse. Clint discovers she is pregnant, and after he beats and abuses her further, he devises a plan where he would abandon her at the hospital. I don’t often ruin the end of the story in my reviews, but I will here. She eventually escapes the hospital and returns to the cabin, with her stillborn baby in a jar, and kills Clint. When the police arrive, nothing is done to try to figure out why what happened, happened. An abused woman is arrested for killing her abuser. This story is problematic on so many levels. 

 

In “The Long Wait” by Alfred E. Neuman, illustrated by Johnny Craig, Red Buckley murders his boss, plantation owner Emil Duval. As can be expected when a plantation is mentioned, you can bet there are racist depictions of Black “workers” Kulu approaches the main house and says “Kulu wanna be house-boy. Kulu wanna be servant.” Yikes. You think Buckley gets his comeuppance in the end…but it still reveals a racially insensitive reason that it occurs. 

 

This is not to say there are not some gems in this volume. There are some good stories here. The first story in issue 1, “The Sucker”, by Maxwell Williams and illustrated by Reed Crandall, is told in second person: you are on the run when you meet a beautiful dame who cheats and robs you, and the only thing you can do every night is kill her…again…and again…and again. In “Halloween”, by Alfred Feldstein and illustrated by Reed Crandall, Ann Dennis is hired as the matron of Briarwood Orphan Asylum by the headmaster, Eban Critchet. She does her best to improve the lives of the orphans in her care, but when she discovers what the headmaster has been doing, she takes matters into her own hands, and the children aren’t far behind. “The Gorilla’s Paw”,  by Alfred E. Neuman and illustrated by Johnny Craig is a violent and brutal retelling of the classic “Monkey’s Paw” tale. After a man is convinced he must purchase a mummified gorilla’s paw from a curio shop, he is plagued by nightmares and wishes he had never bought it, then awakens to find the paw holding the amount of money he paid for the paw. When he discovers the secret of the paw, he keeps on wishing, and his last wish proves to be a doozy. “Keepsake” by Jack Oleck, illustrated by Graham Ingels, gives us the story of an undertaker mourning the death of his childhood friend and unrequited love, Miss Hettie. During his time as undertaker, he kept a deadly secret for her, and after he discovers another one of her little secrets, he will be able to keep another. A fun inclusion in the third issue is the “Letters to the Editor” column the best one that denounces the magazine as “the highest and most advanced form of Brainrot on the market today” and “the stories and thoughts that these magazines contain are truly the work of Satan.”

 

This volume provides a glimpse into the horror enjoyed in the 1950s and echoes the radio plays such as Suspense, The Mysterious Traveler, Inner Sanctum, and others. Despite the problematic elements of some of the stories, I still found enjoyable tales of terror within these pages, and the artwork was well done. This book, along with other EC Comics archival editions, would be an interesting addition for comics history, as well as courses studying comics and graphic novels. Recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on March 18, 2023 by , Reply
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