Horror movie review: The Woman in Black- Decent movie, but it’s got Harry Potter in it

Released: February 2012
Website: http://www.hammerfilms.com/ourwork/3/the-woman-in-black

Here’s another movie that I kept bumping into in the supermarket at a bargain price, but waited to see on television because yes, I’m a cheap git when it comes to watching movies. The simple truth of the matter is that most movies these days aren’t even worth a few quid. They’re mostly stooooopid crap with special effects, re-makes and franchise money-makers that aren’t worth my time or money.

The Woman in Black is a movie that people will see for two reasons, the first (and main reason) is because Daniel ‘Harry Potter’ Radcliffe is in it. The second reason is that it’s made under the ‘Hammer Horror’ banner, and for old horror buffs people like myself that still means something.

I didn’t pay for this movie because I’m not really that enamoured with Daniel Radcliffe as an actor. I’ve seen him do a couple of things, including the child’s book, and I’ve never been that impressed. To me he is the perfect embodiment of masculinity in the UK post 2001. A wimpy, personality free blank slate of a child-man who looks like he’s waiting for a bus, has lost his iphone, and thus doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s one of those guys who you assume is gay, because everything about him screams politically correct and soft. Is he actually gay? He’s a feminist liberal atheist Richard Dawkins fan, so frankly, he might as well be. I’m sure if he’s not fashionably gay then he feels terribly guilty about it.

Onto the actual movie then, this is supposed to be a review after all and not a rant about the sorry state of masculinity in the UK today.  It looks absolutely gorgeous, and everything about it screams old-fashioned Hammer horror. The plot is centred on a glorious gothic haunted mansion, set right in the middle of a moor. The house (which is the star of the show) is haunted by a BOO, oh no I’ve crapped my pants ghost who is making the local children kill themselves because she’s upset about the death of her son.  Radcliffe is playing a Jonathan Harker in Dracula type character, sent there on business, but soon finding himself at the centre of spooky proceedings.

There was one moment in the movie that really made me jump out of my skin and for that one reason alone I’m knocking out this review. The plot was predictable, even right up to the end with a twist that didn’t exactly surprise anybody, well except for the character that it happened to. The supporting cast was pretty decent, and far better than Radcliffe himself, the sullen and apathetic elephant in the middle of the movie, distracting from what was an atmospheric and effective old-school horror movie, that offers a couple of decent scares for particularly jumpy audiences.

Oh God, Radcliffe was bad in this one. There he stood, an awkward boy-man, completely unconvincing in his role of a recently bereaved widower worried about his now motherless young son. He carried the same expression of myopic indifference and blank faced mild discomfort throughout the entire movie. Was he drunk? Was he stoned? Perhaps he’s just not very good at portraying adult characters? He was awful in this. Combining a complete lack of physicality with an unnerving ability to make me not give a crap about anything that happened to him. He was a boy dressed up as a man, awkwardly stuck in the middle of a decent horror movie, giving absolutely nothing to it, whilst a cast of far more interesting co-stars did their best to inject some personality into proceedings.

After seeing Radcliffe in this, a couple of Harry Potter movies and some pile of junk on television about a doctor, or something, I’ll be going out of my way to avoid anything that he’s in, in the future.

Perhaps his Harry Potter wealth is enough, and he’ll retire from movie acting early and spend his time reading books about a Godless universe, and feeling guilty about the feminist liberal issues that are Rockefeller designed to turn grown men into jelly-fish? Or he could work in the theatre and learn how to act? I hear he’s doing that, so perhaps he’s aware of his shortcomings and is trying to improve himself? If so, then I applaud his efforts. I don’t hate the bloke. I’m just not a fan. That’s all. I want him to read and to learn, and to evolve. I used to think that Richard Dawkins had some wisdom as well, but I kept reading, and I changed my mind about those childish ideas. Hopefully Radcliffe will do the same. Dawkins is a trap, and lots of young people fall into it.

This was a good movie, containing one big crap my pants moment that forced me to write this review, but my initial reservations about the casting of Radcliffe as the main protagonist were pretty much spot on. The Woman in Black might be a Hammer horror movie, but its got Harry bloody Potter in it, and although not completely sinking the movie, he does very little to enhance it, other than getting some Harry Potter fans to spend their parent’s money on it. I hear they’re making this into a franchise. Let’s hope Radcliffe has no involvement in it, because he almost ruined this movie for me. With his expressionless blank face it’s amazing to me that he’s an actor at all. Then again, a lot of things are surprising to me now. In the land of the mediocre, the most mediocre of them all is King.
Rating: 6/10

Review: Star Wars #19- Feminist liberal wet fart

Writer: Brian Wood
Artist: Carlos D’Anda
Publisher: Dark Horse comics
Released: 9th July 2014


This issue is a bit of a wet fart. Let me explain why. Issue #18 of Star Wars concluded a long arc where the female leaders of the rebel alliance had fallen for an obvious Imperial trap, thus jeopardising every single life in the rebel alliance, including all of the famous names that are the main reason why anybody will be reading this book in the first place.

The funny thing about that book was seeing how feminist liberal writer Brian Wood dug himself out of the hole of his own creation. How could he make the female leaders look strong, even though they were responsible for the big mess that the rebels had found themselves in? If this was anything resembling reality the incompetent two-some of Mon Mothma and Princess Leia would have been forced to resign their positions of power for gross incompetence. That’s not going to happen in this book for two reasons. Firstly, Brian Wood is working with characters with story-arcs that mustn’t be damaged or changed because they have to correspond with the roles they played in the three very popular movies.

Secondly, they are female, and as anybody who has been paying attention to 2014 feminist liberal programming in comic books is already aware of, there must be no criticisms of female leaders in contemporary comics, and any suggestion of incompetence on their behalf is a no-go area. It’s not quite the no go area that Islam or anything to do with the Middle East is, but it’s on par with portraying a homosexual character in any kind of bad light. You just don’t do it if you want to work in comics. I loved issue #18 because Brian Wood had to perform story-telling somersaults to get himself out of the politically correct mess that he had created. And you know what? He largely succeeded. Sure it made no sense, and the story has now continued like nothing has happened, but he didn’t upset the liberal Mafia (and he is a part of that Mafia as well) and all is right in the wilfully blind world of feminist liberal comic books in 2014.

Star Wars #19 has a great front cover, and the interior art is a lot better than it usually is in this book, but the story has now officially fallen into wet fart territory. Beginning something completely new, Wood has decided to tell a not particularly interesting tale of the rescue of an agent, who will probably turn out to be somebody’s sister, or daughter. Again as is usual fare in feminist liberal books, the woman is portrayed as an all action man, leaping from danger, wise quipping and acting like men used to do before it was politically incorrect for them to do so. But she’s trapped, and she needs rescuing, although this is not her fault obviously, and she’s tough and independent, but she’s trapped and here we go again with Brian Wood getting himself in a mess, trying to portray females as strong, but getting it all wrong again. Another shovel Mr Wood?

The rest of the book is Han Solo and Luke Skywalker having their balls slowly removed as they meekly and unquestioningly follow the orders of their female superiors. Han Solo is just a love sick teenager in this book, and he in no way shape or form resembles the man that appeared in the original Star Wars movies. That man was a 1970’s man, and that man simply does not exist anymore. He’s been replaced by a liberal wet fart, and that’s what this book is, a liberal wet fart.

The character with the most personality in this book is a droid. A bad guy droid who is tracking our action heroine and saying funny little things like, ‘Humans are so stupid,’ to himself whilst doing so. I agree with him by the way. The humans in this book are stupid, very stupid, and once again Princess Leia has flown some of the most important characters in the Star Wars universe into a very likely trap. All organised and approved by Mon Mothma, the most tactically unaware leader since Hitler thought it would be a good idea to invade Russia in the winter. With leaders like this it’s amazing that the rebels actually won the war against the Empire.

The book ends with an emasculated Han Solo blindly following orders in the background as his beloved Millennium Falcon gets shot to bits, and incompetent Hillary Clinton clone Princess Leia thinks only of herself whilst enjoying a tepid hug with her now even drippier than ever brother Luke.

What a pile of shite. That’s it for me on this one. Who exactly is this book written for? I was reading because I’m a fan of the old characters, but they’ve been given such a lame liberal makeover that they are no longer recognisable as the characters I fell in love with in those old movies. Luke is a gay best friend, Han is a lovesick order following teenager, and Leia is bossing everyone around whilst making bad decision after bad decision with no consequences whatsoever. With decision making skills like that she’s the perfect embodiment of the western political elite’s and their actions since 2001. Making mistake after mistake, with nobody ever taking any blame for the consequences of their actions. And yes, I’m talking about you Tony Blair, you lying piece of satanic crap.

The only thing to look forward to in this book is the rescue mission of a girl who is so identical in every single way to Princess Leia that Wood is even forced to address it in this story. Is she a sister, half sister, cousin, auntie, whatever? She’s probably the gay lover of Mon Mothma, or something equally as daft, as you know that Brian Wood has just been dying to write a gay character into this story to show off his politically correct credentials to all of the brain washed liberal drips out there. You know what, I don’t care. That’s it for me on this book. The art has never been better, but the story has never been worse, and those bloody characters? Give me a break, what a total and utter feminist liberal wet fart.
Rating: 3/10 (for the art)

Blitz review: Death Vigil #1- A cool little club of dead people

Writer: Stjepan Sejic
Artist: Stjepan Sejic
Publisher: Image Comics (Top Cow Productions inc)
Released: 9th July 2014

It’s easy to write a comic book that I’ll enjoy and say nice things about in one of these reviews. All you have to do is write a book with likeable characters and decent art. Add that to a good story with a few unexpected twists, interesting and believable villains and none of that feminist liberal nonsense and I’m happy. If you deal with contemporary new world order issues then I’ll be even happier, but as long as you don’t insult me and pretend that it’s still 1993 I’m okay if you don’t want to go too deep into 2014 reality. I won’t give you a 10/10, but I’ll still read a 7 or 8 out of ten book.

Death Vigil doesn’t do the contemporary new world order stuff that would make it a 10/10 for me, but it’s a pretty entertaining read, with characters that I actually liked. It was well written, you get a lot of story for your money, and it looked all right as well. I don’t go too much into the plots and characters in my reviews as I find that really tedious in other reviews that I read. All you need to know about this book is that it’s about a cool little club of Goth types who protect our world from evil spirits and demons. They are dead, but they can walk around and interact with you and me, but they can’t crap and they can’t puke. I learnt that in this first issue.

I enjoyed the book because of the tone of the writing, it had a strong opening, and it had a nice little plot surprise in the middle as well. The characters were written with a smile, and they put a smile on my mug as well. I want to see what they get up to next, and if I were dead then I’d love to join their little club. It’s a cool little club, the kind of club I wished I could have joined during one of the many periods in my life, instead of all of the silent and apathetic people I actually did meet in my teens, twenties and thirties. I’m in my forties now, and I’m still waiting for that cool little club. Oh well, that’s what comics books are for isn’t it? To meet people far more interesting than the boring drone repeaters you meet in your everyday life. So a good book, not great, but it was fun and I’ll keep on reading.
Rating: 7.5/10

Review: Spawn #245- 90's adolescent

Writer: Todd McFarlane
Artist: Todd McFarlane and Szymon Kudranski
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 9th July 2014


It might seem a bit strange for me to say this, especially if you think that I am some sort of far too knowledgeable comic book geek (which I’m not), but I didn’t know much about the Spawn character before picking up this book. I knew it had something to do with Spiderman, and that’s probably why I hadn’t bothered with it before. You see Spiderman is for children, and I haven’t been a child for a very long time, so I pay no heed to Spiderman. That makes sense, right?

I picked up Spawn #245 because I liked the creepy front cover of the fat evil clown, and yes I know the image is a very worn out cliché, but it’s still a good image and also because I didn’t have that many comic books to read this week.

I was initially a bit confused with the book as I saw it was an Image comic, and even I know that Spiderman is Marvel, so what was going on here? A quick Start Page search later (I don’t use the NSA search engine of choice Google) and I was up to date with the situation between Todd McFarlane and Marvel. It's not that complicated.

McFarlane created Spawn in the early 1990’s (not that bloody time period again. Comics have been stuck there for far too long now) whilst working for Marvel, and he had a bit of success with it and decided to bring the character out of Marvel and into Image comics, which he helped to set up. A good idea, and I’m sure he has a healthy bank account now because of it. But is the book any good in 2014?

First off, this is not really a comic book for grown-ups. It’s still very much a comic, with themes and characters designed for the perpetually adolescent mind-set. An audience that might be physically in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s or 50’s, but it’s an audience still stuck in the dating and getting to find their way in the world stage of their developments. It’s a Spiderman book basically, for people who haven’t grown up, and perhaps never will. Why do I say this? Because issue #245 has all of those teenage, adolescent concerns that you will find in a television show about twenty-something’s, before children and commitments come along to make things complicated, and stick you on the boring treadmill of routine that so many adults waste their lives upon.

The main protagonist is a handsome, well built superstar celebrity with a gorgeous girl desperately in love with him, a great career and strangers obsessing over how intriguing he is as he nonchalantly passes them by in the street, all cool and mysterious and handsome. This is a wish fulfilment character for teenage boys. The story is all about him, his exciting past and how people just want to understand what makes him so fascinating, so dangerous, so sexy, and so handsome. The book ends with a common fear of the teenage boy, a crazy girl with a knife who will emasculate you (choppy) and take away all of your cool independence and boyhood testosterone driven power.

The art has a darkness to it that gives the impression that this is more ‘adult’ and serious than it actually is, but some of the facials look a bit expressionless and two dimensional. Overall, I’ve seen a lot worse and it does create an atmosphere that just about carries the narrative. There’s no Clown in the book by the way, but that’s okay. If you trust covers you don’t know comics.

It sounds like I hated the book, but I didn’t hate it at all. Comic books by their very nature are adolescent, and this is a half-decent adolescent comic book. There are no New World order issues explored in the book, so it could have been set in any time period, and is most redolent to myself of the early 1990’s time period in which the writer first created the character.

There are mentions of blogs and celebrity television, but there’s more to these times than just throwing in references to new technologies every now and then. Just ask Edward Snowden about it. A guy who told the truth, and is now hiding out in Russia because the criminal US government wants to put him in jail for doing so. We live in very strange and dangerous times. Times where the lies of the western governments that are owned and controlled by undemocratic banking families and corporate interests are being increasingly exposed. The best comic books will reflect the times in which they are written. This book doesn’t do that.

I have to ask a question of myself. Do I really need another 1990’s comic book in my collection? This book is okay, but it’s not exactly cutting edge, and I’m looking for cutting edge these days. I want to read something that screams 2014, not 1992. I’ll be fair to it though, because it does intrigue me, a little. I’ll give it two more months, and if I see any 2014 concerns explored in the book then I’ll keep reading. If I don’t, then at least I know what Spawn is about. It’s not bad. It’s a good comic for teenage boys, but for somebody of my advanced years I need just a little more than it’s giving at the moment. But hey, two months. We’ll see.
Rating: 7/10

Review: Weird Love #2- The past is not as weird as today

Writers and artists: Numerous
Publisher: IDW Comics
Released: 2nd July 2014


This book is a re-print of old ‘romance’ tales from 1950’s American comics, with a targeted audience of young girls, dreaming of romance and marrying a rich, successful, popular and handsome young man. I don’t see this as something to laugh at by the way. I know that most feminised liberal twit young readers will read these books as horribly sexist, but what’s wrong with young girls dreaming about marrying a successful man who loves them? I don’t see anything wrong with that, unless of course you are a liberal idiot who doesn’t want anybody to be happy, which, come to think of it, is kind of my point really about the innate idiocy at the heart of feminist liberal ideology.

Of course a lot of the underlying assumptions and portrayals of male/female relationships are going to be dated now that the Rockefeller funded mind control of modern education has warped generations of minds, but I’ll review this book as something of it’s time, aimed at young girls, and at least trying to give them a good sense of morals, something that’s lacking in modern comics where all men and women blur into an indistinguishable mesh of sexless human beings, all competing for the same goals and all acting like they don’t know what it means to be either a man or a woman. These comics might be a little ‘weird’ but that’s only because we don’t know who we are anymore.

The front cover is very suggestive, with an overly painted young women pointing at her lips whilst looking at some sparkly jewellery. The words coming out of her lips are undeniable risqué, ‘And just what must I do to get those?’ she asks. This tone however is not reflected in the actual stories inside the book. It’s just one of those covers that comic books used to do so well, where you are teased into buying the book by a slightly deceptive cover that promises far more than the actual stories deliver. Some people might feel slightly conned by that, but if you’ve ever read any comics you can’t pretend to be surprised. You know the score with front covers. They are the honey trap, designed to ensnare the reader, and this one does that very well.

The first story is probably the most salacious of the tales, in that it is the story of a prostitute, told with her own words. This could have been pretty scandalous, and controversial, but the writer makes it very clear that the prostitute is the victim of this story, and that she’s a good person who has good morals, and is just doing the job because she’s desperate for the money to further her education and live a good, morally upstanding life as a honest tax slave like the rest of us. Plus, she just escorts the men, she doesn’t have sex with them, so she’s a good person and she always escapes the evil men at the end of the dates with her morals intact.

The story concludes with the girl marrying the perfect embodiment of corporate morality, a Policeman who had been investigating the morally dubious operation that she had been a part of. No blame is put upon the woman, even though she freely chose to be a prostitute, and the story ends up with her being safely taken back into society by one of their corporate enforcers. Modern readers will laugh at this story as the young woman is portrayed as an enfeebled victim who needs a man to protect her. They won’t like that as all women in modern comics have to be portrayed as fierce and independent, sticking up for themselves like they are men in a dress. I disliked it because the women is portrayed as a weak victim and the only thing that will safe her is a statist symbol of corporate ‘authority,’ that being the cop. Have comics changed all that much? Look at all of the statist authority figures in comic books today. Are they not all cops or special agents to the corporate state as well?

The second story is something that you certainly won’t see in contemporary comics. Again it’s from the point of view of the female protagonist (which is understandable, as that’s the best way to bring the female readers into the story, to make them empathise with the main character.) This time her problem is not financial (like the first tale), it’s her physical appearance. Is she too fat for love? Yes, I know how funny that sounds, but can you tell me that young girls today won’t be going through these same emotions? Look at their skinny role models, and look at all of the tales about anorexia and bulimia that you hear.

This tale follows a rich young girl as she finally realises that her weight isn’t as important as she thinks, and that a man will love her for more than her appearance. The only problem with the story is that it doesn’t follow through with it’s own premise, as at the end of the tale the young girl loses all of that weight as the love of her life jumps into her arms and happiness overwhelms her. If you are going to tell young girls that being fat isn’t a bad thing then it’s probably not a good idea to have the girl lose all of the weight before love finally arrives.

This tale really shoots itself in the foot, and in that sense it’s unintentionally really, really funny. But would you see any of these themes in a contemporary comic? That’s very interesting to me, as I can’t recall ANY portrayals of fat girls in my big stack of comics. That could be a real issue today, and perhaps it’s the reason why you have so few girls reading comics now? After all, why would they want to read comic books where female characters have unrealistic physiques that they cannot compete with? Come to think of it, you have the same issue with young boys as well, don’t you? Body image is something that comic books don’t deal with in 2014 and in that sense little has changed since the 1950’s.

The third story is about ‘drugs.’ Its portrayal of illegal (non-taxed) drugs as bad is very contemporary, in that this portrayal has changed very little in the mainstream over the past sixty years. All drugs are bad, well, all of the illegal ones. The legal drugs are fine, and they don’t count as ‘drugs’ because a statist authority figure (a Doctor) gave them to you. The only difference in this 1950’s portrayal of addiction is that a nice boyfriend ends up saving the young girl at the end of the tale. In modern tales that nice boyfriend wouldn’t be allowed to save her, as the girl always has to be portrayed as ‘independent.' No boyfriend is allowed to save her, because that’s ‘sexist.’

This story has a predictably happy ending where an exciting boyfriend is dumped, and she is taken back into the safe arms of corporate society by her boring and safe boyfriend, her boring and safe friends and mainstream education and ‘medicine.’ And what is the moral to the story? Watch out for excitement, it will probably lead you into becoming a drug addict. It’s best to be a corporate slave. It might be boring, but at least it’s safe there. That’s not true of course, but that’s the story you’re getting here.

Lots of readers of this book will get a lot of fun out of the next full page spread, of a young Ronald Reagan (Yes, that Ronald Reagan) as a dapper, handsome young man who is the ideal husband for all of the young readers of the book. He’s portrayed as handsome, ambitious, sporty, respected and caring for animals. It seems very naff, but if you take away his obsequence to statist authority figures I can see that he has some admirable qualities here. He’s a statist honey trap of course, bringing young girls into the control system. But is he any more ridiculous than the male celebrities that young girls are taught to admire these days? At least he’s not a wife beater, a talentless television non-entity or somebody who boasts about his wealth and power, like just about every moron celebrity worshipped by young girls today. Sure, he’s Ronald Reagan, but at least he’s not prancing around in a bejewelled facemask and calling everybody who doesn’t worship him a ‘racist.’

The next story is pretty stupid, and at its core it’s fulfilling a fantasy that is politically incorrect these days, where a man saves a woman from physical danger and they fall in love and live happily ever after. The only way you’ll see this played out today is in reverse, with a woman rescuing a pathetic man from danger, emasculating him in the process and taking all of his masculine power away. But hey, that’s okay, because that’s progressive, right? Girls love weak men you know? They can’t get enough of them. So this story about a man rescuing a girl from a bear at the zoo is ridiculous, but at least they have the gender roles in the right order, and you won’t see that these days.

The next story, about a man at work being distracted by his mini-skirt-clad secretary, is obviously very dated now. With it’s portrayal of men as being the bosses (not anymore, the women are bosses now) and with the girls wearing mini-skirts not to feel good about themselves, but to attract the men and get themselves successful boyfriends. No way would this be allowed to see the light of day in a 2014 comic. It shows just how much gender roles have changed since the 1950’s, and as you look around the world today, do you think that’s been a good thing? No longer can a man be a man, go to work and feed his family. No, that role has been taken from him. The wages have decreased and the bills have gone up, so now both men and women have to work just to live and pay those bills. This has led to increased divorce rates, and the situation where men have been taken away from their children, and those children have brought into the control system of the new daddy figure in their lives, the corporate state. Do you see how this works? How the corporations and governments have colluded to control families, by destroying them and taking control of their lives? If you think this is a progression in humanity then you’re a bloody idiot. Take men out of the home and society collapses. That is what is happening right NOW.

The last story in this book is a tale about how physical appearance is not as important as being a decent human being. Okay, it's a slightly ridiculous tale, but at least it’s attempting to tell young girls that a man should love you for more than just your appearance, and if all he’s interested in is your appearance then he’s probably not worth having anyway. Again the woman is portrayed as the less dominant partner, waiting for the man to make his decision, but, and I’m sorry to break this to all of you deluded liberals out there, this is the role that men and women are supposed to be playing. They are the roles that make us happy. They are the roles that have always made us happy, both men and women. Is there anything so bad about that?

So what did I get out of the book as a whole? I got the impression that gender roles were far less confused in the 1950’s than they are today. Men knew how to be men, and women knew how to be women. There was happiness there, not confusion, loneliness and resentment. Sure there were problems, and the portrayal of women as helpless victims, waiting to be rescued by a strong, handsome male protagonist who is little more than a fill-in for a corporate government system is deeply problematic to me. There was a soldier and a policeman, and a politician and the rest of the ‘good’ men were little more than drones to the corporate, work hard, never question, pay your taxes and die system, but at least they were recognisable as men.

When I read comic books today there is little difference between the male and female characters. Do you think this is not problematic? Look at the world you live in today. Is it a paradise? Because that is the world that has been created by people who have been indoctrinated into the erroneous belief that men and women are the same. They are not the same, and the longer we kid ourselves about this the more unhappiness is spread in our decaying western world. Broken homes, less and less jobs with both sexes competing for them, no breadwinner roles for men, increased intrusion into the family by a corrupt state, unhappy women who find comfort only in alcohol, and a generation of children who lack strong father figures and have abandonment issues.

The end result is unhappy children eager to put on the control system's uniform and serve as their minions, where they get to unleash the anger caused by abandonment issues on anybody who does not bow down to the global Police state that is being built all around us. So look at this silly, ‘politically incorrect’ comic, and ask yourself this question. Were things really so much worse in the 1950’s, where men were portrayed as men, and women portrayed as women? What is wrong with that? And, more importantly, what is wrong with the world we are all living in today?

Rating: 7.5/10

Review: Madam Frankenstein #3- Flesh on the monster

Writer: Jamie S. Rich
Artist: Megan Levens
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 2nd July 2014

This was a very enjoyable third issue, with the writer putting meat on the bones of our main protagonists. I like it when my comic books don’t rush, and this one didn’t rush. It took its time, taking us into the recent past of some of the main characters and it was all done without anything too obvious or overly dramatic. After all, the most traumatic events in our lives are normally just interpersonal dramas, not movie explosions or run-ins with serial killers.

The story told in this issue is interesting and convincing, and I gained some sympathy for the villain of the piece. That is always a good thing, as a well-written villain has to be a fully formed three dimension character, rather than a moustache twirling bad guy who just does his evil deeds because he’s an evil man. The old saying is true, isn’t it? The best villains don’t see themselves as villains. Look at Tony Blair, one of the most despised real-world villains in the UK today, but does he see himself as a villain? I very much doubt it.

Before I conclude this review, a quick mention of the artwork. Perhaps it's because the story has an old-time horror comic feel about it, but the decision to leave the artwork uncoloured is a good one.  It just seems right for the story that is being told. It’s good and the story is good. What else do you need to know? So that’s my review. The book was interesting, well written and I care about what is going to happen next. There were no silly liberal slap your forehead moments, the story progressed whilst fleshing out the main protagonist, and I’m already eagerly awaiting next month’s instalment.
Rating: 8/10

Review: Sheltered #10- No surprises yet

Writer: Ed Brisson
Artist: Johnnie Christmas
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 2nd July 2014


I’m still expecting, or at least hoping, for something a little bit out of the ordinary to happen in Sheltered, and that’s why I’m still reading the book. It’s been ten issues now, and so far it’s been a half-decent cult leader story, involving the murderous children of ‘Preppers’ so, on the surface at least, it appears to be more contemporary and relevant than your average cult leader book.

Issue #10 doesn’t contain any surprises that would turn this good book into an excellent one. It’s still cult leader stuff, and as the children squabble and fight amongst themselves the power dynamics continue to evolve. There’s also the question of whether or not the wounded outsider will make it back to civilisation alive, and reveal to the outside world what is happening on the camp. That is resolved in this issue, and I won’t spoil it. It gave the story some dramatic moments, and it was interesting, but I want more.

One of two things has to happen to make this a better than average book. 1- The predicted climactic catastrophe actually happens and the cult leader was right all-along. 2- The cult leader is a mind-control dupe, set up by the CIA, and the whole thing has been a psychological operation on the general public designed to demonise groups that go off the plantation and stop being willing slaves to statist (government) tyranny. Do I think that any of these two things will happen? I used to think so, but I’m starting to doubt it now.

If the book is just a cult leader book, well that’s all very good, it’s been okay, but it’s not exactly revolutionary is it? I’ll keep reading to the end, just to see if the ending delivers something spectacular. Hopefully it will, but I won’t be surprised if the story ends like this particular issue. With lots of blood, dead bodies and the conclusion that people can’t be trusted to be free, and that you need big brother government to look after you, and keep you safe from yourselves. I have my fingers crossed, but comic books have a habit of disappointing by not going the whole way. However, I’ll be fair to the creators and leave my final judgement until the story is actually concluded.
 Rating: 7/10