Graphic Content: Love Everlasting written by Tom King and drawn by Elsa Charretier

 

Romance comics are often maligned for being not only formulaic but even misogynistic. The overall message of many of these comics is that the female protagonist in them must always find a man in order to achieve happiness. This is the hell in which protagonist Joan continuously finds herself, forced to constantly rediscover her one true love in Volume 1 of Love Everlasting. This book, written by Tom King and drawn by Elsa Charretier, is a surprisingly brutal, fantastical sendup of the trite romantic formula.
There are many different stories in this book, but they all star Joan, a woman who is constantly forced to find true love, whether it’s as a maid who works in her paramour’s house, a secretary with feelings for her dreamy boss, or a young woman who is trying to decide if settling down with her boyfriend is in her future. Joan has gone through multiple iterations of the same story, and no matter how many times she tries to escape, she is always killed and forced to repeat another doomed romance. 
This rom-com mashup of Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day gets a lot of miles out of the premise because it tells each of these stories with tongue firmly in cheek. Charretier’s artwork mimics the style of many of these comics, whether she’s incorporating more retro styles of clothing into her drawings or rendering these scenes in a completely different artistic style. She only ruins the illusion when Joan herself tries to fight back and is bloodily dispatched. 
King’s writing perfectly mimics the tone and dialogue of romance comics until they don’t. In these stories, Joan seems to be a willing, or at least unaware, participant until she receives a nagging sense that none of this is real (what it is, however, is still uncertain, meaning there will hopefully be more to this series). Fans of dark humor, violent shootouts, and mind-bending sci-fi concepts should immerse themselves in Joan’s stories as she tries to escape them.

New Arrival: Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes

 People expect horror stories to be set in Gothic castles, rickety houses, and abandoned amusement parks, but one of the scariest settings for a horror story may be right above our heads. Space is the perfect setting for a horror story; it’s cold, it’s dark, and as the tagline for the movie Alien says, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Perhaps it is science fiction’s use of space as a place of limitless boundaries and optimism, there seems to be a dearth of horror stories set in the final frontier. S. A. Barnes’s newest book Dead Silence creates a different kind of horror story by setting the classic ghost story in outer space.

Claire Kovalik’s uneventful career leading a beacon repair crew is coming to an end. She’s staring down the barrel of forced retirement and her prospects are as dim as the endless cosmos outside her window. Then her crew comes across the luxury spaceliner Aurora, which was declared lost more than twenty years ago. She and her crew see this as a golden opportunity to make some quick money but exploring the ship reveals something bad is waiting for them in the Aurora. Claire and the rest of her crewmates are hearing strange whispers and seeing words scrawled in blood. The crew and passengers of the Aurora all suffered in their final voyage and Claire and her crew may be next.

The book’s tagline calls it Titanic meets The Shining, but there are a lot of such combinations that can be made like Ghost Ship in space, or Alien meets The Haunting of Hill House. Barnes takes advantage of the Aurora’’s emptiness, employing description and background that give an idea of what the ship was, which makes what it now is all the more terrifying. And Barnes shows it to be a terrifying place, her descriptions serving to establish a claustrophobic, tension-wrought atmosphere. Like any good ghost story, she also has a protagonist with the right kind of psychic baggage that the ship can use against her. Add in some potentially expendable members of her crew and you have a by-the-numbers ghost story that shows space, the final frontier, can absolutely be the final frontier of fear.

Fearsome Five: Top Five Reimaginings of Frankenstein

On February 1st, 1851, Mary Shelley passed away but not before she cemented her legacy in the burgeoning horror genre. Frankenstein, her seminal story about monsters and the men that don't think about the consequences of creating them, lives on in everything from classic movies to cereal mascots. Its longevity is, in part, because this story, like all good horror and science fiction, hits on some timeless and timely themes, ranging from relationships with creators (parents?) to hubris disguised as the pursuit of science, has allowed this tale to come back in a myriad of forms, like its monster, pieced together from our own experiences, cultures, and folklore. On this, the anniversary of her death, to celebrate the monster she has brought to life and we keep resuscitating, here are my top five Frankenstein-inspired reading suggestions.
5) Made Men: Getting the Gang Back Together: It's a continuation of the Frankenstein mythos with a little Kill Bill and Lethal Weapon thrown into the mix. Easily one of the more original takes, this graphic novel, written by Paul Tobin of Colder fame, features Jutte, a police officer and ancestor of the infamous Doctor Frankenstein. When a bust goes wrong, she brings her team back from the dead, more or less, and back together to get revenge on the lowlifes that tried to kill them. This book features hard-boiled modern noir and a guy with a lion's head, if you're into one or the other. Or even both.
4) Monster: A Novel of Frankenstein: David Zeltserman's novel is told from the monster's perspective, and he turns out to be more sympathetic in many ways than in the original story. The monster, named Friedrich, evolves throughout the story into a hero who must stop the evil doctor Victor Frankenstein, a depraved individual and the man responsible for Friedrich's resurrection. Friedrich has his share of supernatural adventures, encountering vampires and Satanists, but still manages to keep the focus on the dichotomy between the monster at its maker. 
3) Mary Shelley Monster Hunter: Vol. 1 Abomination: Not only does this graphic novel retell the Frankenstein story but also weaves within it the story of its creator. The tale begins in a Mary Shelley museum and goes back to Mary Shelley's inspiration for the tale, a trip with her fiancee Percy Shelley as well as their companion Lord Byron. Forced out of their accommodations, the group must spend the winter in the castle of Dr. Victoria Frankenstein, where Shelley discovers her real-life attempts to create life. This feminist take, with the doctor and monster maker being a woman, doesn't skimp on the horror and suspense, and authors Adam Glass and Olivia Cuartero-Briggs create something unique while paying homage to a well-known story. It's a tightrope they seem to walk with ease.
2) Frankenstein in Baghdad: Ahmed Saadawi takes the familiar tale far from its European roots and creates a timely fantastic tale in the process. Hadi scavenges up the parts of people and stitches them together in order for the dead to be recognized by the government and given a proper burial. However, Hadi soon discovers that his creation gets a mind of its own, a mind centered on revenge and on keeping itself alive by stealing replacement parts. This story excels in showing the struggles of war-torn Iraq using the lens of the fantastic.
1) Victor LaValle's Destroyer: Another timely retelling/continuation of the Frankenstein mythos that leans into the tragedy of police shootings, the tension of contemporary race relations, and the all-too familiar narrative of lives taken too soon. Dr. Baker is a mother who loses her young son to a police shooting. Of course, as a scientist and a descendant of Dr. Frankenstein's, she has the tools to rectify this situation and seek revenge on the world that allowed this tragedy to happen. Expect lots of superscience and secret government organizations, but LaValle's work also forces us to look at what our society has become and whether or not we can do anything about it.

New Arrival: We Are Monsters by Brian Kirk

Nightmares are terrifying, as well as great inspiration for horror, because a) they are a movie reel of terrifying imagery and symbolism--especially if you believe in dream analysis--and b) they unravel in a disjointed, haphazard way along with other logical aspects of the waking world, leading to c) an environment where we have little to no control. Such an environment is a breeding ground for horror, as Freddy Krueger would attest. But there's another new King of Nightmares on the horizon named Brian Kirk, who establishes his reign with his latest novel, We Are Monsters.
The story begins with psychiatrist Alex creating a chemical cure for schizophrenia. People familiar with how science works in these kinds of stories know that it's basically Murphy's Law times a million, that anything bad that can happen will and it will be catastrophic. In his rush to test this formula, he experiments first on his brother Jerry and then on a notorious killer whose mental issues are seemingly given form and substance, along with the nightmares of other hospital staff and its patients. If horror stories are thought of as roller coasters, this book is definitely a fun house where the floor moves and the walls are mirrors offering only twisted reflections. This book can be considered a metaphorical swipe at an industry and society that overly medicates, which may turn off people who like their fiction without opinions (not the best fiction), but it does so without any overt monologues.
People familiar with Brian Kirk's Will Haunt You know that Brian excels at creating an environment where the lead character, nor the reader, cannot trust anyone or anything. What they've expected about the world and its safety, in Kirk's fiction universes, should not be taken for granted. The Fun House aspect of the book mentioned before takes a bit to get there. Kirk lays the storytelling groundwork, setting up the plot and its bananas conclusion while letting the readers get to know the characters before the tentacles of this well-crafted nightmare pulls them in. Perhaps a better analogy for this book then is an elaborate domino set-up. Kirk takes his sweet time placing the dominoes, but they create quite the spectacle when they finally fall. If Brian Kirk is the new King of Nightmares, long may he reign (or at least keep writing).