Review: The October Faction #5- Good idea, wrong book

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Damien Worm
Publisher: IDW
Released: 25th March 2015

There is one good idea in this month’s ‘The October Faction,’ but apart from that it’s just the usual combination of a story with a muddled tone that features some very cool, gothic artwork.

The good idea is that a bloke who turns into a werewolf is suffering from terminal cancer, but that it doesn’t appear to affect him when he’s a wolf, it's just the human side that’s done for. The obvious solution to the problem then is to stay as a permanent wolf. That’s interesting, but I don’t see how it’s going to be well used in this story that is ostensibly about a jokey Adam’s family/Munsters group and their inconsequential, don’t take all of this too seriously, adventures.

Put the wolf/cancer thing in another book, a book that has a serious tone, take the same artist with you (the fantastic Damien Worm) and then you’ll have something that would really be worth following. Perhaps the wolf blood can be used to cure cancer? But does that blood have other side (murder related) effects?

Do you see what I mean? It’s a good idea isn’t it? It has loads of possibilities, and you could do an entire little series about it. But having that idea in this book as it is, with the comedy tone, and the feeling that nothing really matters, I don’t like to say this, but it’s just not working.

This is particularly evident in issue #5. The book concludes with a cliff-hanger where one of the main characters is put in a life or death situation. That’s a big deal, right? Well, it should be.  It should have a huge, dramatic impact, but because of the casual tone of the book the impact is negligible. You can’t take it seriously, because the book isn’t serious. The entire tone of the narrative is silly, light and inconsequential. You can’t get involved in it, and you can’t take any threats to the protagonists seriously, because they themselves are not written seriously.

Getting emotionally engaged in this book would be like getting worried about Wile. E Coyote as he flaps his arm and falls helplessly to the bottom of the mountain. You don’t worry about poor old Wile. E because he’s a cartoon. He’ll be fine, don’t worry about it. That’s the same feeling I get with the characters in this book, the only difference is that the Roadrunner cartoon is funny, whilst this book is just a big old muddle.

I don’t understand what the writer is going for here, or what I am supposed to make of it all. It confuses me. I don’t understand what it’s trying to be. It’s not funny enough to be a dark comedy, and not interesting or emotionally involving enough to be a drama, plus it looks spooky and creepy, but the story isn’t scary at all.

I love the dark, atmospheric, spooky art in this book, but I can’t pretend that it’s a superior comic book just for the art alone. Take away the great art from this book, and what do you have?  Let’s be honest. It isn’t great. It’s okay, but in a comic book market flooded with okay isn’t it about time that we started to ask for something a bit better?


Rating: 5/10 (Plodding script, but I loved the art, as I always do with Mr. Worm)

Comic review: The October Faction #4- Goodbye pretty comic

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Damien Worm
Publisher: IDW
Released: 21st January 2015


I don’t want to further my reputation as the grumpy old man of comic book reviewers and needlessly slag this comic book off, because that’s no fun, and it’s kind of cheap of me as well.

Let’s face it. It’s easy to go on the Internet and call something terrible, say you hated it, and string together some pretty sentences to describe how awful it is. But what kind of individual would want to spend their days reading awful comic books and then destroying them on the Internet? I know it might appear that I do that all of the time on my blog, so I think it’s time for me to rein myself in.

From this day forward I will not waste my time deconstructing silly, throwaway, light-hearted, escapist comic books. I need to acknowledge that they are not for me, put them aside, stop buying them, and move on to something else.

If I come across a comic book that is hiding it’s insidious anti-human, global Police state message under cover of playfulness and silliness then I will point it out. But if a book has no agenda other than to entertain and avoid real-world issues then I’m not going to waste anybodies time by going on a massive 2000 word rant about it.

The October Faction #4 is one of those books that appears to be purposefully ignoring the real world. I understand that is what some (a lot?) of comic book readers want, but that’s not why I am reading them. The book offers a daft plot and some cuddly characters that you shouldn’t be taking too seriously, and it’s a jumping off point for me.

For anybody interested in the plot, it’s silly, and throwaway, and it has that post-modern, knowing, too cool for school thing going on with the dialogue. Characters are linguistically clever, but no wisdom is being imparted. Death is portrayed as a bit of a joke, foreshadowing that death in this comic isn’t really death, and so the last page reveal comes as no surprise. It’s just something that of course happened, because none of this is serious, and you are a bit daft if you are taking any of it seriously.

‘Have fun with the book dammit.’ That’s what writer Steve Niles will be shouting, if he reads this review. ‘Don’t take it so damn seriously mate’ (that’s something else that I’m sure he’d say).

But for me, as the reality junkie, anti collectivism, anti globalisation Internet tough guy twit that I am, I have to bow out now. I’m a bit disappointed, as it means that I’ll be missing out on the awesome artwork of Damien Worm, but the narrative progression, themes and characters being offered up by writer Steve Niles offer very little to me personally. I can’t get much out of it, and so I’m not going to try to find something that is not there.

That doesn’t mean that I hated the book, because I didn’t. There’s nothing here that greatly offends me, but there’s nothing that illuminates contemporary real-world issues either, and as it’s not exactly a memorable book that leaves me begging for more on a strictly narrative level either, why would I continue to read it?

If you like Tim Burton/Goth kind of stuff then give it a go. You might enjoy it, the art is beautiful, but for me, it’s become a bit blah now. I’ve read four issues, and even though I still admire the art, the story is beginning to wash over me. That’s it. Indifference has set in, and there’s not enough reason to keep this one on my rapidly diminishing wafer thin comic-book pull-list. Goodbye pretty comic book, you were fun, for a while.

Rating: 5/10 (occasionally amusing, great art)

Comic review: The October Faction #3- Waiting for Buffy to make a special guest appearance

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Damien Worm
Publisher: IDW 
Released: 10th December 2014


It’s the tone of this comic book that is probably stopping me from enjoying it as much as I want to. It’s that comedy, throw-away, nothing really matters and lets have a laugh at everything in a wishy-washy politically correct, feminist, liberal, oops, is it okay if I say that, kind of way.

If you’ve read any of my previous reviews you’ll know where I’m coming from here. I want my comic books to say something, and I don’t want to see this endless obsession with gender and sexuality politics being played out again and again, where men are weak and indecisive, bordering on silly and effeminate, whilst the women are strong independent ass kicking warriors. That used to be a powerful statement, but it’s the norm now. It’s boring; it’s the consensus, stop telling me the same stories over and over again. Give me something new that doesn’t remind of cultural Marxism and Frankfurt school theories from my college days. I learnt that stuff, but its theories, it's not reality, and it’s old theories now. It doesn’t represent the current state of affairs in a post 9/11, post NSA surveillance, post Iraq, post Edward Snowden, almost post Obama (fake hope and change) landscape.

What I’m trying to say, in a ham fisted way (my bloody computer re-started just after I finished this review, deleting everything, so this is me trying to re-capture the essence of that deleted version in an angry typing kind of way) is that the tone of the narrative in ‘The October Faction,’ is a bit too mainstream, a bit too safe, and a bit too familiar for my liking. It’s saying the same old stuff, and it’s not connecting with me, not doing anything more your average Marvel X-Men book would do. If you like that kind of adolescent stuff then you’ll like this. It’s okay, it’s warm and fluffy and giggly and the old television school-hall stereotypes are thrown in there as well.

In other words, it’s doing the same old Buffy the Vampire Slayer stuff quite well. If you like Buffy or the X-Men Academy, or Wolverine Academy, or anything else that deals with teenagers on the cusp of leaving school and trying to find meaning in their lives then you'll love it.  I just want something more than it has to offer. I’m old. School was a long, long time ago for me, and I don’t particularly want to remember anything about it either.

There are two standout narrative moments in this book, firstly a scene where a tormented bully is shown surrounded by resentful Ghosts of his guilty past, and the end panel with its shocking moment of extreme…. well, I won’t spoil it. These two moments are made all the more dramatic by the stunningly atmospheric artwork and colouring from artist Damien Worm. If you want modern Goth in comic book form, then Damien Worm is your man. He has a way with shading, with bleak, dark colouring, and his grim depictions of lean, desiccated horror are an absolute joy for anybody interested in all things that could loosely be collected up within the Gothic horror genre.

The October Faction is horror in an Adams family, or Munster’s tradition. The characters are not really threatening, they are silly and you know that whatever happens doesn’t really mean anything. This tone, of soft playfulness is broken with the final narrative development at the close of the book, but because that tone of unthreatening silliness has already been so firmly established I cannot get too excited about what happens next in a narrative context. Instead, I am just going to enjoy the wonderfully evocative art, the use of the colour blue was particularly memorable in this issue, and I’ll let the story wash over me. Get this book for the art. The story is a backdrop; the art is the main attraction in this one.

Rating: 7/10 (Rating for the art alone)

Comic review: The October Faction #1: Halloween greetings from the Worm

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Damien Worm
Publisher: IDW
Released: 8th October 2014


I love Halloween. Everything about it screams (literally) silliness, fun, excitement and adventure. The cold, wet, dark nights, the Pumpkin lights, the trick or treating, the scary movies, and the even scarier comics as well, of course.

Worm and Niles are the spooky twosome who bought us the wonderfully gothic Monster & Madman, and here they’ve teamed up, just in time for Halloween 2014, to give us another dose of gloom and doom, comic book style.

Truth be told, I was already adding this book to my pull-list before I even read it. All you have to do is look at the names on the cover, flick through the book for a couple of seconds and you’ll already be a fan. The story involves a spooky Adam’s family scenario, monster hunters and mysterious goings ons involving a wife who has slowly become less attached to her husband. Is she having an affair? Nah, that would be far too boring. So what is she doing? What do you think? It’s coffin related, and that’s all I’m giving away.


The art, by the fantastically named Damien Worm, is gloriously gothic and enveloped in shadows, bloody memories of the recent past, seances, tormented spirits and haunted house atmosphere. It’s the colouring that does it. You have to look closely, but don’t linger for too long. You might not like what you find lurking in the gloom encrusted shadows, and once seen the spirits of the dead have a horrible habit of burying themselves into the deepest, hidden recesses of your mind. The book could be written in Mongolian for all I care. The art alone makes it a must by book for all fans of gothic horror.

Are you a Goth? If so, you need this book badly. If you’re not a Goth, then get the book anyway. Trust me, you’ll love it. You’ll discover something new, something awesome, as the kids says these days, or not, probably. I don’t know what the bloody kids are saying these days. What do I know? I’m old.

I’ll tell you what I do know though. I know a good slice of Halloween fun when I see it. This book is exactly what I need in my life right now. My decorations are up, my Medusa head is telling me to look into her eyes, my haunted tree is mocking me, and my Ghoul in a coffin is periodically jumping out at me as I scurry past his place of rest in my living room. Did I mention that I love Halloween? And I also love, love, love this comic. Put down that Batman book, and get yourself something spookalicious, just in time for Halloween.

Rating: 9/10

Review: Monster & Madman #3- Sad Endings

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Damien Worm
Publisher: IDW
Released: 21st May 2014

How can I not say something about this excellent book? The previous two issues have been fantastic, and this concluding book caps everything off perfectly.

The artwork in this one is all about the atmosphere created with colouring and shading. Shadows, bleak reds and brief flashes of light create a feeling of grim darkness that is perfect for anybody wanting to delve into the more gothic side of the comic book world. I love that kind of stuff, and when it’s done well it is something to behold. This book is done extremely well, and the story of Jack the Ripper creating a bride for Frankenstein’s monster, using his need for body parts as justification for indulging in his sadistic slayings, is the perfect justification for these two characters interacting with each other.

The ending itself offers finality, but there’s no comfort there. That’s what you want in this bleak, coal black horror yarn about a tormented creature meeting a deranged lunatic. There can be no happy ending here, and when you don’t get one you are perfectly willing to accept it. Sometimes in life things end badly. Sometimes that’s all there is. There are no heroes, just disappointment and pain, and all you can do is decide to end the suffering. That isn’t depressing, it’s a brutal fact of life and to see it here in this excellent book is a sign of superior writing by a man who knows that sometimes, oftentimes, life just sucks, and that the longer you live, the more it continues to suck.

Dark stuff, right? Well that’s life and you have to tell it like it is sometimes. That’s what I want in my comics, some harsh truths. We might not like them, and we might not always want to hear them, but if you live in a bubble where truth never enters what kind of life is that? You might as well be in prison, and who cares how comfortable it is. Prison is still prison, and only truth will set you free.

If you haven’t already got this book then get it now. Three issues, all excellent and with a satisfying conclusion. Great stuff. If you have ever been into the Horror genre then Monster & Madman is an essential purchase. Why can’t all comic books be as good as this one? Now that’s a question, and I’d suggest that the bubble of untruth that a lot of comic book fans have created for themselves might go a long way into explaining it. I’ll leave that thought dangling for the time being. All you need to know about this book is that it’s bloody good gothic stuff. If that’s your thing then get it now. You’ll love it.
Rating 9/10