"Wytches" is a beautifully haunting experience, but ultimately it's a father- daughter tale at heart

Few horror comics have been like Wytches.  A tale about a family's relocation to a small town in New Hampshire and their subsequent encounters with strange creatures that live in the dark woods just outside their new home, it is a haunting tale, full of strange sounds and scary visions which may or may not turn out to be true.  Deep down, however, Wytches is a story about a father (Charlie, a comic book writer) trying to help his teenage daughter Sailor get over a personal tragedy that has left her at odds with most of her high school friends.  In short, it's a tale of teenage angst and her effort to fit in.

Writer Scott Snyder and illustrator Jock get the most out of their talents by creating a world that is at once very real and simultaneously full of the bizarre and the wicked.  The ghouls (or "wytches", as some of the characters refer to them) here are frighteningly looking creatures: tall, thin, deformed, and grotesquely foaming at the mouth of their sharp fangs, which are constantly craving human flesh.  They're like zombies, but zombies of nightmares, the ones who will seldom let you have a good night's sleep, for they're always haunting you via dream whispers and by interrupting your sleeping visions.  When the other townsfolk learn of Sailor and her family's troubles, their reaction is surprising, but not in the way one would expect.

What separates Wytches from other similar graphic novels (Harrow County definitely comes to mind) is that at its very heart, it's a story about father trying to reconnect with his daughter, a daughter he's always trying to prepare for the real world by testing her various fears: her fear of heights, her fear of acceptance at school, and ultimately, her fear of her nightmares.  Charlie isn't like your typical movie or TV show dad: he's a man of conviction, and when faced with a hopeless situation in which even his wife Lucy, Sailor's mother, a wheelchair bound cripple, is shown to have ulterior motives which aren't of the motherly kind, he does the most courageous thing, and all for the love of his only child.

Wytches will stay with you long after you read it.  The atmosphere it creates is memorable and terrifying in all the right ways.  It's a classic horror tale made for those who grew up watching both Rosemary's Baby and The Blair Witch Project.  In other words, readers from multiple generations who know what a good fright-fest is when they see it, be it on a movie screen or on a comic book page.
A

"Harrow County: Countless Haints" is yet another witch-terrorizing-the-open-country horror tale

Much like Wytches, an Image graphic novel by writer Scott Snyder and illustrator Jock that (slightly) preceded it, Harrow County: Countless Haints, is a horror story about a girl living in the backwoods country, who's dealing with a curse of a witch.  Its heroine is Emmy, a young, naive girl living on a lonely farm with her father and their many animals, all consisting of either chickens and cows.  The thing is, Emmy has no idea how powerful she is, nor from what evil root her bloodline was originally spawned.

This first volume TP (which collects the first 4 monthly issues) deals with Emmy being ostracized from her small town, as she soon finds out she's wanted dead by not only her townsfolk, but also apparently by her father.  Her crime: she's a long lost offspring of Hester Beck, a witch that was lynched by her own neighbors (including her father) some 18 years ago after they found out just how far her evil influence can be traced back.  Before dying, Beck put a curse on the town: she would return, in form of another girl, once that young female reaches adulthood, and would once again terrorize those who have condemned her.

Emmy is a sweet girl, and it is apparent to any sane reader that she doesn't have an "evil" bone in her body.  Her entire character and temperament are nothing but goodness and compassion to all living things.  Aided by a skin-like (one could even call it an outfit of "flesh") costume of a boy who has long left it to roam the country side as a raw-flesh boogey man, she's able to summon and command those dark forces around her to fight the ever ignorant citizens of her small town, who have no idea that she has no witch-like intentions.

Harrow County may not have the creepy atmosphere - nor the stylish violence - of many other contemporary American comics, but what it does possess is a heroine who is unlike all others, a fine creation by its writer Cullen Bunn.  Emmy is no less than a child-like angel learning to master her newfound supernatural abilities, and she does it all through Tyler Crook's artwork, which is at once gloomy and dark, appearing as if we're looking at it through a dirty window.  It's a memorable piece of "writing via art", albeit not a very original one (Wytches has a similar storyline, and was released prior).  But based on the audacity of its debut, I'm willing to explore it further, come whatever ghouls may.
B

"Nailbiter Volume 1: There Will Be Blood" is stylized, gory, but very undercooked

Welcome to Buckaroo, Oregon, a small town that has the most unique of distinctions: it's a birthplace of world's worst serial killers - all sixteen of them!  It's a world full of small-towners, all of who either went to high school together or dated each other.  After an FBI agent Eliot Carrol who's investigating series of murders there goes missing, his friend Nicholas Finch is called upon to help.

Among the various characters we meet in the isolated Buckaroo, there is also the female town police officer, Sheriff Crane, who helps Finch (and who was in a relationship years ago with the town's latest serial killing product, Edward "Nailbiter" Warren) in his investigation; a teenage girl, Alice, who seems to have problems with the local high school bullies (and these fellas may also be involved in something ELSE); Raleigh Woods is an owner of a memorabilia store, a cowboy looking to make a quick buck and cash in on the town's doomed fortune of being a serial killer breeding ground.

Some have already compared this serial to Twin Peaks and Se7en, and I for one can see the comparisons. Unfortunately, what does not work for me is the writing: it feels far too sophomoric, especially when compared to other contemporary graphic novels on the market currenty (most notably Sex Criminals, Saga and Chew, to name just a few).

The killers we see in this first Trade Paperback are the classic Hollywood boogeymen: they have bag over their heads, or are wearing strange masks; in other words, they are hiding their mugs from their pursuers and from us.  A few murderers in particular remind me of the killer in movie The Town that Dreaded Sundown (both the 1976 and the 2014 versions) and also of the famous miner-maniac in My Bloody Valentine (also both the 1980s and the more recent 2009 one).  And a scene where "a killer" sneaks into the morgue and attempts to murder Finch and Crane is reminiscent of ghost face from Wes Craven's Scream franchise.

My biggest problem with this first issue are incredibly lame and childish lines.  Characters often say things that are equivalent to George Lucas' dialogue in the Star Wars prequels.   "Because they know I'm going to kick their asses!", "I'm really getting sick of this town of yours, Sheriff!", "This is really getting on my nerves!, "I've got some other news to add to the list of bullshit around here" sound like lines written by a hack film student for a 50 cent short thesis film that is completely talentless on both sides of the camera.  I just hope that such cheesy dialogue is improved in the episodes to come.

Nailbiter: There Will Be Blood isn't necessarily a bad or even a boring graphic novel, but it does suffer in comparison with other current series in the American landscape, as I've already mentioned.  Joshua Williamson clearly isn't Brian K. Vaughan, nor Rick Remender, and to a spoiled reader who's seen and read better material this will come as disappointment.  Mike Henderson does a good job illustrating the dark and creepy atmosphere of Buckaroo, but his style of wide-jawed characters, who are mostly of the annoying or the villainous kind, has been exhausted in this first volume.  Here's hoping that both the writer and the artist stretch themselves just a tiny bit for the upcoming issues.
C

Altman & Zsigmond are a strange - but effective - match for a "revisionist" Western such as this

An old-school Western, the kind that they just don't make anymore, that is more about character and principles than action or gunfights. Warren Beaty does a good job of playing a businessman who isn't nearly as smart as he thinks, and that timeless beauty, Julie Christie, is your standard "hooker with a heart of gold" archetype, but also a woman who knows more about business than the naive man she happens to work for. It's really hard to believe that this was directed by Robert Altman, that great master of long takes and even longer ensemble cast movies (Nashville, Short Cuts, Gosford Part, etc). The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is subtle yet atmospheric, with low lighting and darkness dominating every frame of this rather sad and tragic story set in the cold and snowy mountains of the frontier. Definitely one of the better movies of the Wild West period where the heroes are doomed to suffer because they just can not compete with corporate criminals, no matter how much they try to resist.
B

"Chew - Volume 1: Taster's Choice" is a perverted trip into the culinary world of the surreal

Rob Guillory and John Layman's comic book creation, Chew, is a terrific example of the culinary bizarre.  Implementing elements of detective stories, world wide flu outbreak that wipes hundred million plus souls, government conspiracies and a "super" hero who's got the most unusual gift: he can feel the origin, the history and life of anything his taste buds devour once it's in his mouth.  Author and creator Layman calls him a cibopath, which is a term used for a person with such aforementioned abilities.

The hero in question here is none other than Tony Chu, a detective who, after a case he's assigned to goes awry and results in unnecessary casualties, is immediately fired from the Philadelphia Police Department.  However, having displayed his "cibopathic" abilities in great measure to an undercover FDA agent, he's immediately hired by that same agency to work as a taster of evidence in order to discover the perpetrators of any food-related crimes.  Working along with Mason Savoy, a large and ominous looking fella who resembles a bear, Tony tackles all sorts of different cases, some that even involve uncovering a great government conspiracy in which millions died due to a case of bird flu - or did they?

Rob Guillory's artwork is reminiscent of the goofy and caricaturistic style found in Sunday Newspaper comics.  His characters are mostly disproportional, giving them a dimension of the surreal and the bizarre, but never turning them into cartoonish types that we can't take seriously.  There is plenty of gore, both of the bloody and of culinary kind, and the readers can practically sense and feel some of the awfully disgusting products that Chu has to taste while on duty.  The result is a marvel for multiple senses: we can see, smell and even taste some of the items in question on the very page in front of us.  Chew is a comic for those who want something different than the ever growing science-fiction (Saga) or horror (The Walking Dead) that have so commandingly taken over the  American graphic novel landscape as of late.  It's a delicious nightmare into all things tasty and disgusting, but also with a brain and imagination to spare.
B+

"Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" is just "Mediocrity & Boredom & Amateur Filmmaking" (sigh)

At first, watching the poor box office performance of this movie, I wondered, why? But then, I saw it, and it was clear as day. The movie has the right idea, but it never really takes off and runs with it; instead, it plays it very safe, and the result is just a poor, poor version of the famous Jane Austen story, and nothing more. The zombie storyline is so poorly handled that it's kinda pathetic: the director should've pushed the envelope further. The biggest sin the movie makes is that it's just plain BORING! And for such a mashup of classic literature and the ultimate modern horror genre of the walking undead, it's really a marvel just how in the world anyone could fuck this up. I kept wondering, and still do, what someone like Edgar Wright, or even Robert Rodriguez, might've done with this material. The possibility alone brings a smile to my face, but the sad reality of how this actually DID turn out is enough to keep that frown there for a while.  
D
D

Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" is insightful, clever, funny, and above all, moving. In a word, it's magical.

Persepolis is like few graphic novels or comics I've ever read.  For one, it's a story about a girl  (for a change) growing up in a very right-winged and old fashioned Iran, a country going through a revolution where a minor faux-pas such as not properly covering one's head and hair as a woman could land you in big trouble with the authorities.  Author and narrator Marjane Satrapi creates and maintains a comically realistic atmosphere of her life at home with her rather liberal parents, a very wise and modern thinking grandma, and also her life and experiences while living in Austria for some two years in the mid-1980s.

With her acute and observant eyes and ears, Satrapi captures the ruthlessness a Middle Eastern's country regime change, and she juxtaposes it with her teenage years of living in the West, where, according to her, "if you were to collapse and pass out on a public street, no stranger would ever come to your aid."  This I truly do believe, but I also believe that the West offers certain advantages over living in out-dated governments, and those perks do come at a certain cost, as no place on Earth is perfect, as she so surely and wisely learns.  Her life in Persepolis is equivalent to that of a superhero who, dissatisfied with the ever growing number of those just like her, she travels to a place void of any of her kind, only to discover that it's a cold, soulless abyss for any open minded individual.

In essence, Satrapi is a serious artist who has seen and experienced extremes of both places - each good in its own right, and each also flawed as all hell - but who keeps a strong grasp on her deep down ideals that liberal change is actually a good thing, especially in this world of ours that is trying very hard to catch up to the philosophy of so few free thinking individuals.  It's a smart lesson in adolescent wisdom, political and cultural liberation, and a woman's right to lose her virginity before her wedding night (a concept so alien to Iran she grew up in that it could get the perpetrators of such an activity executed).  After an eye opening and amusing coming of age tale such as this, and on the black & white pages of Satrapi's celebrated graphic novel, no less, the only thing left to look forward to is to watch the 2007 animated film adaptation of the same name.  I, for one, can not wait.
A