Hack/Slash: Trailers Part Two by Image

Unlike other people who choose to review comic books in a grouped or lumped style, I'm going to try and bring them to you as I find them, and let you know what's going on with every single issue. Call it expanding, call it obsessive, call it...whatever. I have a love for comics, and I want to bring that to y'all all the same as novels and anthologies. They are a very important part of horror literature, after all.

That being said - first up is Hack/Slash: Trailers Part Two by Image Comics.

Now, I haven't gone into a comic book shop in...shit...probably about 15 years. Well, unless I was buying Mcfarlane Movie Maniacs figurines, that is. (I know...shame). Recently I decided to take a walk out to a shop I haven't been to before, to see if I could track down Brian Keene's Doom Patrol #16. I did (and will review it later), but I also came across this grisly little gem.

To be fair, I'd heard through the grapevine that Mike Oliveri wrote a story for this issue of Hack/Slash, and that's primarily what sparked my interest. Now, before I go on acting like I know what I'm talking about, I want to say that this is the first time I've ever even encountered this particular title, let alone any of the previous issues in the series. I can say, however, that I'm going to be on the hunt for this entire (and epic) series. It's incredible!

Hack/Slash: Trailers Part 2 is basically to comic books what anthologies are to novels. This specific issue has what they call "13 tales of Naked Fear!", in the style of slasher movie trailers. That's right. 13 mini-bursts of brutal, sexy, bloody, relentless horror stories and imagery from 13 different writers and artists - all done in 62 pages.

Of all of them, I'd have to say that Home, Home On Derange by Steve Seeley (story), Jenny Frison (art), and Josh Emmons (letters); Wallow In Death by Mike Oliveri (story) and Sean K. Dove (art & letters); and Psyche by J. Torres (story), Joe Song (art) and Rus Wooton (letters) were among my favorites. Not just because they were great little stories, but because the art complimented the stories so well. They also felt like the most original pieces in the book (okay...Psyche wasn't original, but points have to be given for the twist on Bloch's/Hitchcock's Psycho)

Rape Van by Mike Norton (story), Brent Schoonover (art), Nate Lovette (colors), and CRANK! (letters) holds top position though, for being strangely unique and brutally hilarious. Imagine a van...nevermind. You have to read it.

Whether you're looking for a bevy of beautiful blondes being butchered around a campfire (Campfire Stories), the senseless slaughter of cute-but-evil little fuzzballs (Too Cute), a midget...thing...that attacks from within the womb (Womb With A View), or a sensuous look at just letting yourself go with the music (Blood On The Dancefloor), this issue is for you.

You can check it out at Image Comics' website, Tim Seeley's official website, and at the official Hack/Slash Inc. website. Amazon has several Omnibus' available for this series, but from what I can see they don't have single issues available. Here's the search.

PBH.

The Pack: Winter Kill by Mike Oliveri

You have to be dead not to dig this book. That's right. Dead.

What you see before you is one of the most incredible mixes of crime, action, and the supernatural that you can ever lay claim to reading. To say that this is the best example of how cross genre writing should be done would be an understatement. Between Greg Lamberson and Mike Oliveri - the bar has been set.

When tourists are murdered in a resort town in the Northern mountain range in Minnesota, FBI Special Agent Angela Wallace is called in to investigate. But what she finds tests her training and sanity, for what she discovers should not exist.

The above synopsis does not do justice to this book whatsoever. It doesn't even hint at the intensity that Oliveri has produced throughout this story. Every action sequence and plot point in the story where we find the characters planning their next move, is coated in massive amounts of tension and suspense. It's this style that drives the book along, making it something of a quick and exciting read, but also supremely satisfying in the end.

The characters in this novel are tight and more or less not people that you can identify with. That being said, I'm going to go further out there and say that they're more like those that you wish you could be (assuming that everyone has an action filled fantasy or two in their head). Every single one of the characters is written in a larger than life way that is reminiscent of the greatest comic book styles. This was a welcome break, for me, in that they're not something I had to get too attached to - giving me more time to focus on the masterful storytelling that was taking place. The characters blended into the scenes so well that everything - the whole plot, characters, dialogue and settings - all kind of melded into one another, creating one giant, adventurous, literary version of an excited whoop, that you'll ever read.

It should also be said that The Pack: Winter Kill has crime novel written all over its core, but the reader would be mistaken to judge it on that alone. When the book reaches it rollicking crescendo, the author brings out the gore like nobody's business. Oliveri has an incredible talent for setting up scenes that are not only satisfying, but are also emotionally charged, in that you're sitting at the edge of your seat waiting for everything to play out. It's then that he brings out the big guns and gives you exactly what you came for - be it a terrific scene featuring police and procedure, the supernatural eeriness of a winter landscape, or an all-out gorefest at the hands of a terrifyingly powerful werewolf. Whatever your want, I'm pretty sure that this book has you covered.

Make sure you check this book out. It is one of the most satifying reads I've had lately.

You can pick it up at Amazon in Kindle and trade paperback formats.

Also, look more news about The Pack and the impending series of graphic novels and prose novels to come, at Mike Oliveri's website - The Malice Engine. You can also contact him on Twitter and on his message board which is hosted at The Keenedom (registration required).


Check the Giveaways page in the next couple of weeks, here at Paperback Horror, for information as to how you can win one of 2 copies of The Pack: Winter Kill in trade paperback format.

PBH.