Creepshow Comic Review

    

Rating: 3.5/5

Synopsis: Based on the George A. Romero film, Creepshow is an anthology featuring five stories written by The King of Horror himself Stephen King and illustrated by comic book artist and Swamp Thing co-creator Bernie Wrightson.

 

My Thoughts: I read this one for my monthly online book club discussion, so for better context, I watched the namesake movie and read a few of the EC Comics this work was paying homage to. Regarding the comic book movie (yes, not only superhero flicks befit the label), it did a pretty great job recreating the somewhat campy, pulpy nature of the old EC Comics using similar captions and visual effects seen throughout these titles and even a page turn effect while still employing cinematic techniques to remain engaging. It wasn’t perfect since some of the stories dragged for too long at certain points due to a greater emphasis on exposition and set-up but it still was a fun watch all round. Ironically, this comic book adaption lacks a few of the pulpy comic attributes suffusing its movie counterpart. However, before I start ripping apart these features, I’ll run through the positive ones.

    For starters, I liked the realism presented in the art style showing accurate body proportions, postures, and symmetrical shapes. The chiaroscuro and shading techniques were particularly impressive, giving the panels a greater sense of life and energy along with unnerving vividness during the gory scenes which, dare I say, surpass the EC comics this book was paying tribute to which, in comparison, looked a skosh flat and crude. In addition, Creepshow wasn’t as overly verbose in its prose either which gave way for further engagement in the plot. Furthermore, The Creep host was an amusing, eccentric pastiche of the types seen in EC’s Tales of the Crypt including The Crypt-Keeper, Vault-Keeper, and Old Witch.

    Moving on to the flaws, I would have appreciated it more if there were those quasi-letters and weird ad pages emulating the variety printed in comic magazines of the time which the film counterpart made multiple nods to throughout the transitional scenes in between segments. Furthermore, the paneling didn‘t leave much in the way for revealing twists (predictable as some of them were) due to the dearth of splash pages at the page turn unless you happened to have the fortune I did not to read each panel individually on Kindle (bless their zoom-in feature) so in that respect, the film’s actions were more exciting to anticipate. The only moment in the book which came close to disturbing me was the final one, “They’re Creeping Up on You”, involving a cockroach infestation which was equally horrifying in both mediums because of how it elevated a common household nuisance/concern to an alarming extent in a plausible way that makes the reader legitimately dread it. Having dealt with insect infestations before, I can say it hit pretty close to home.

 

Final Thoughts: Creepshow is an entertaining horror collection with beautiful art work and decent tales worth reading if you’re in the mood for pulpy fiction stories or are a fan of EC Comics’ catalog.