Spirts Of The Dead!

There are two recent comic artists who bonded perfectly with the zeitgeist of Edgar Allan Poe, the late Berni Wrightson and the late Rich Corben. I cannot choose between them, and fortunately I don't have to. In the collection Spirits of the Dead, we have Corben's adaptations of Poe which he crafted in the final decade of his life for Dark Horse Comics. These are not the adaptations he did for James Warren's outfit, but fresh takes on tales that have become foundational in the American mind. I will go a step further and suggest the unthinkable, and that is in some few of these adaptations, Corben has improved upon Poe's original. 

All the shorter stories below (and some poems) are vintage Poe-etic reflections on love and death and how the former is not hindered by the latter, but that neither is the latter respectful of the former. They appeared in different issues of Dark Horse Presents though Corben's efforts with Poe only rated one cover mention and that was a corner shot. 

"Spirits of the Dead" (1827) is the poem that kicks off the collection and is presented in text form only.

"Alone" (1829) introduces the reader to Mag the Hag, Corben's EC-style ghost host. She's one-eyed and bends on a staff quite often, though she's still able to insert herself into many if most of these stories. "Alone" tells us of a fellow named Solomon who gets lost between this world and the world of his dreams. 

"The City and the Sea" (1831) gives a tale about slavers who find justice if not mercy when they discover the titular city. 

"The Sleeper" (1831) is classic Poe and shows us an adulterer and murderer who has a hard time enjoying the fruits of his crimes. 

"The Assignation" (1834) is a truly disturbing yarn about a chap who ends up married to a mad woman and seeks a measure of solace. 

"Berenice" (1835) gives us a tale with some gender-bending when the titular character turns up help a chap who is lost in readings and has no time for practical things. 

"Morella" (1835) offers up a dash of incest which turns into something stranger and even uglier. 

"Shadow" (1835) gives us the grim tale of a Roman military unit which seeks shelter from a plague in a catacomb which turns out to be no shelter at all. 

"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) is masterfully adapted in two self-titled issues and takes the famous Poe story we all know and twists it into something even creepier. And that's doing something to one of Poe's most vivid yarns. 

"The Man of the Crowd" (1840) is the new story added to my version of the collection and has a man chase another who eludes for reasons which are mysterious and strange. 

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) adapts the great Poe detective story and gives it that little jigger of grotesque and pungent horror it's been needing but didn't know it needed. 

"The Masque of the Red Death" (1842) by Corben gives us a party full of revelers who try to escape the plague only to discover weirdly that it's come to visit. 

"The Raven" (1845) is a second adaptation by Corben and this one takes the most famous of Poe's work and well and truly adds some surprises. 

"The Conqueror Worm" (1843) is about as gross as a story can get, but it's still compelling stuff about a chap who murders and then realizes that his prideful retribution was only the beginning of his suffering. 

"The Premature Burial" (1844) is a zany tale of burials and resurrections which keeps the reader guessing even past the final page. I immediately read this story over again. 

"The Cask of Amontillado" (1846) takes the classic tell of revenge and wine and offers up a frame story which allows us to see some cosmic justice take hold. 

This is as good as horror stories get. I found Corben's robust artwork more than up the challenge of offering us insights into Poe's cracked-up universe. Poe's work has always been something I access better through the lens of creators who take the stories and adapt them, either to film, television or as in this case comics. Corben and Poe are a perfect match. This collection is highly recommended. 

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The Best Of Berni!

Berni Wrightson was the ideal artist to work for Warren Publishing's like of black and white horror magazines Creepy and Eerie. He such a perfect choice that it is surprising how little work he did for the company. Some years ago Dark Horse put together the Wrightson stories and art from both Creepy and Eerie in a highly readable single tome from a decade ago. 

The book begins with the work for Creepy and what is arguably Wrightson's comic art masterpiece "The Black Cat". He is credited with both the story and art and his gothic style is ideal to bring Poe to the comic page. This is followed  by a trio of stories written by Bruce Jones. The first is "Jenifer", a story of love and revulsion which is the very essence of weird. "Clarice" is a poem of sorts though no less horrific. "Country Pie" is a story that Wrightson inked over Carmine Infantino and gives a glimpse of serial killers of a different stripe. Bill DuBay wrote "Dick Swift and his Electric Power Ring", a heart-warming story in the Twilight Zone mode. This story also features the combo of Wrightson inking Infantino. Nicola Cuti wrote "A Martian Saga" for Wrightson, giving the artist the chance to put his stamp on the "Red Planet". Bruce Jones is back for "The Laughing Man", a story of the remote jungle and one greedy man's strange and lurid encounter with a hidden race of man-apes. 

Slipping over into a section dedicated to Wrightson's work for Eerie, we find first up a nifty and exceedingly well-drawn and well-written story entitled "The Pepper Lake Monster".  Bill DuBay is back with a nightmarish take on Little Nemo in a story titled "Nightfall", but this young Nemo is assaulted by nightmares rendered lovingly by Berni. The classic "Cool Air" gives Wrightson the chance to write and drawn a classic adaptation of unquestionably Lovecraft's most chilling story of horror. On a strange note Budd Lewis wrote "Reuben Youngblood: Private Eye" with pencils by Howard Chaykin. Wrightson inks this yarn about a pre-WWII gumshoe who runs afoul of German blood smugglers aboard a zeppelin. The story section of the volume concludes with a rare color story titled "The Muck Monster" by Wrightson, one he both wrote and illustrated which offers a startlingly different take on the classic Frankenstein monster-creation yarn. 

The final section of the book features some of Bern Wrightson's most alluring and repulsive artwork for Warren, the delightfully sarcastic frontispieces featuring both Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie as they introduce that issue's goodies. Wrighton's wonderful ability to blend horror and comedy is perfect for this task. We're also treated to the few covers that Wrightson did for Warren as well as getting a glimpse of the youthful fanboy Berni's contribution to Creepy #9 from 1966, years before Wrightson's debut as a pro in Creepy #62 with "The Black Cat" in 1974.

All the stuff in this volume is above average and most of it, the stuff done by Wrightson on his own is simply magnificent. Tomorrow we see more of Berni's take on Frankenstein. 

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Return From The Dead!

I like a good mummy story. And Return from the Dead, a collection from Wordsworth Publishers edited by David Stuart Davies, offers up a heaping helping of some truly classic mummy tales.

The collection features five different and distinctive mummy stories.

The lead piece which takes up the overwhelming portion of the collection is Bram Stoker's The Jewel in the Seven Stars. I've traditionally really liked this story, in many ways better than Dracula, though I've altered that opinion recently. The early parts of the tale have a riveting tension as mysterious events unfold in a the mansion of a mysterious Egyptologist who has been found in a trance by his equally mysterious daughter. The tale is told from the perspective of a young lawyer who of course is in love with the daughter and gets drawn deeper and deeper into a rather complex mystery concerning an ancient Egyptian queen and her rather peculiar cat. The story apparently had an original ending deemed too dreary for repeated publication and Stoker reportedly rewrote the denoument on his deathbed to give the tale a bit more of an upbeat send off. I don't think I've ever seen the original ending which is supplied here alongside the revised version, and I find the original compelling myself though quite stark.

Jane Webb Loudon's The Mummy is an old science fiction novel which showcases an Egypt of the future but concerns a mummy from the distant past. The tone of this story is oddball to say the least, but then we only get an extract from the 1827 novel. Based on this extract, I can let the complete tale alone for now.

Edgar Allan Poe is aboard with his story "Some Words with a Mummy". Sadly I didn't care for it. I have to be in a particular mood for Poe and I just wasn't in this instance. I find him rather dense if I'm not really up to unraveling his prose.

More compelling were two stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. These classics, which I've read before were really entertaining this time out.

"The Ring of Thoth" is the story which reportedly inspired the classic Universal movie starring Boris Karloff. I've long found The Mummy a more complete atmospheric horror than the much more famous Frankenstein. This story does indeed weave a tale about an eternal love and the perversions of nature which forms a core quite similar to that which motivates the famous horror classic. The descriptions of long-weathered skin and reptilian eyes immediately evoked the classic Karloff look.

"Lot 249" is much more of a thriller, offering up a brisk tale of a strange man and the mummy he keeps in his apartment which might be a bit more mobile than such long dead things are supposed to be. This one has got some very tasty horror scenes, some genuinely scary stuff.

All in all a very entertaining collection, and well worth the small price of admission.

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