Broken Frontier

What do the vengeful spirit of a comic artist, a cannibal restaurant critic, a household taxidermist and ninja Mormons have in common? EEEK! (That’s what.)

Jason Paulos and Bodine Amerikah have played around in the field of old-school detective comics for a while now with the groundbreaking Hairbutt the Hippo. With the release of Eeek!, they bring their love for cheesy 70’s horror comics to a collection of short stories guaranteed to have you chuckling in fear…or something like that!

The stories in this collection draw their inspiration from the ‘so bad it’s good’ school of horror. The opening story, "Deadline of Death", features two young comic artists – one of whom makes a pact with the Devil while the other gets ironic revenge. The story comes fully equipped with 70’s hair-dos and knowing winks to comic book history. There’s even a witty narrator who finishes off the piece with a misquoted cliché: "Looks like a case of ‘art imitates death,’ huh, readers?"

Subsequent stories feature the revenge of a film starlet, who leaves the director on the "cutting room floor," a cat lady who likes to stuff her own companions. One hilarious and disgusting story features a food critic who just can’t satisfy his appetite until a freak plane crash onto a deserted island…The final story is much longer but just as bizarre as we are introduced to some door to door missionaries who come packing sharpened crosses and spirit stones. The conclusion to their story is as unexpected as it is appropriate, managing to poke fun at fundamentalist missionaries while also lampooning the stereotype that the secular world has of them.

While the writing is sharp and witty, the nature of the collection is such that there are no real characters to speak of. There is not much substance to these stories, more subtext. These stories are fun because we know what is being made fun of. While it is true that Paulos and Amerikah flatter with imitation, they are also creating highly skillful pieces of art. The art shifts in style and tone to match the story, giving the whole collection an eclectic and collaborative feel even though only two people were involved!

Eeek! is available for order online at http://www.lulu.com/content/144836. It features gory horror, daggy fashion, hilarious humour and plenty of tongue in cheek.