Have You Read This? Basketful of Heads by Joe Hill, Leomacs, and Dave Stewart

 Looking once more at the offerings by Hill House Comics, it's high time I got to Joe Hill's main contribution to these titles, largely because it was the one that peaked my interest in Joe Hill's return to the graphic novel format. The cover of Basketful of Heads features a figure wearing a yellow rain slicker, face obscured in shadow. One arm holds a wicker basket with an America flag draped over it (one can assume it is the aforementioned basketful of heads). The other hand holds an archaic looking battleaxe (one can assumed it was used to sever the heads residing in the basket). Just by looking at the cover, you know what the story is about and what the major appeal of the book is. 

There is a story to the basketful of heads. It takes place on the island of Brody Island (if you watched Jaws, you'll either love the constant references to the movie or roll your eyes at them). It also features two young lovers June and Liam, who are trying to decide what to do with the rest of their lives as summer winds down on the island and all the tourists leave for the summer. She and Liam are then tangled up in a plot involving murder, corruption, and escaped convicts. Liam is captured and June, in fighting off a man in a prison jumpsuit, discovers an axe that has a strange enchantment: whenever you cut off someone's head with it, the head remains alive. June tries to track down Liam using the enchanted axe and her collection of severed heads that reveal more and more of the story. 

Yes, there is a mystery here, but it's not one that leaves a great many jaw-on-the-floor surprise twists. The only real mystery is how someone in the scene is going to lose their head and be added to the basket. However, the story isn't really the point. Joe Hill did the right thing calling this story Basketful of Heads because the title is basically the point. Sure, Hill shows his flair for dialogue and interesting characters that helped fuel the success of his seminal work Locke & Key, but this story is all about the hijinks one can get up to with a severed head. There's no Agatha Christie level of mystery here, or even a Flannery O'Connor deep dive into the human soul. This book is for fans of movies like Re-Animator and Evil
Dead that explores some really fun body horror humor. Even the art by Leomacs and Stewart harkens back to DC's Vertigo titles, which showed many adult situations in ink and paint. This book has a particular audience, but Joe Hill seems to know exactly what that audience wants.