Insane Tales from the Dead Issue 2, Volume 1: Halloween frights

Writers/ Artists: Doug Randazzo and numerous

Released: Halloween 2014

Website to order a copy: 
http://www.insanetalesfromthedead.com/



A good horror short, in the style of a television episode of Tales from the Crypt or EC horror comic has to have a satisfying ending where a twist in the narrative leads to a morally dubious character getting the instant karma that s/he deserves. Horror therefore isn’t really about the horror; it’s about the good story. If you don’t have a good story, if you don’t have strong characters, and if you don’t have a strong ending, then you don’t have a good horror narrative. What you have instead is grimness, and a celebration of being gross for the sake of being gross. It can be very childish and teenage boy as well. Oh look, it’s somebody sawing a guy’s leg off.

KEWL MAN!

Do you know what I mean? What made the movie Seven a good movie? The horror, or the twist at the end? It was the twist, wasn’t it? It elevated what would otherwise have been just an unpleasant movie about a disgusting individual into something that made you feel satisfied, and totally grossed out of course, when you left the cinema. It made you feel like you got your money’s worth. That’s what a good movie is supposed to do, horror or otherwise.

Thus, when I read ‘Horror’ genre comics I’m looking for a good story first, and the horror, and art, are secondary concerns. ‘Insane Tales from the Dead Issue 2, Volume 1’ has points of interest, but does it contain a fully formed, satisfying horror story? No, it doesn’t have one of those.

What it does have is a funny story about aliens making everybody on planet Earth need to go to the bathroom at the same time. The story concludes with a ridiculous panel where the entire planet is subjected to its second world-wide flood, but this time Yahweh/Allah/El/Jehovah/Whatever is not involved.  That was a funny story. There was no moral lesson, no characters/ protagonists, but it was funny, and probably the best thing about the book.

A werewolf tale didn’t work because the protagonist was unfairly punished whilst his unpleasant, horror hating girlfriend was spared. It should have been the other way round. That would have been satisfying to the reader, but instead, the opposite happened.

A tale about alien musicians was more or less an advert for a bands myspace (does that still exist?) page.

‘Torture’ was unpleasant, and it went nowhere.

A story about a squirrel being tamed and then killed by a watchful crow was equally unpleasant, but it had a better structure to it.

Some pages of random horror artwork followed. A guy called Mortuss Art showed some talent, but the rest of it was a bit ‘high-school teenage boy doodling in the back of his textbook’ in its quality.

It sounds like I didn’t much enjoy this book, but I don’t want to conclude this review by giving the impression that I hated it, because I didn’t.

I would much rather read independently produced comic books, such as this one, than all of the mainstream superhero, statist junk that dominates the comic book industry today. I enjoyed the roughness and amateur nature of it all, and it wasn't trying to be something that it was not. It screamed independence and ambition, two HUGE plusses in my book.

I want people to keep on producing independent comics, to do them over and over and over again until they’re so bloody good that some twit like me will be absolutely unable to say one single negative thing about them. I’ll leave this book thinking, and laughing about aliens making everybody poo themselves. I’ll tell you what. That’s a lot more than I’ll get out of reading the latest copy of Spiderman, Avengers, Wolverine, X-men, Captain America or Batman.

Rating: A couple of Pumpkins and a bag of sweeties