Creepshow Vol 3 #1 Review

 

Writers: Chip Zdarsky & James Stokoe

Artists: Kagan McLeod & James Stokoe

Letterers: Pat Brosseau & James Stokoe

Cover Artists: Martín Morazzo & Chris O’Halloran; James Stokoe; Steve Beach

Editor: Ben Abernathy

Designer: Jillian Crab

Production: Richard Mercado

Masters Of Horror: Greg Nicotero & Brian Witten

Additional Creep Art: Michael Broom

Publisher: Image Comics

Price: $3.99

Release Date: September 25, 2024

 

Stories remind us of our communal past and teach us how to function within society. But what happens when we embrace stories that break the strictures we live by? Let’s grab our paint sets and carving tools, leap into Creepshow Vol 3 #1, and see!

 

Story: Let ‘Er Trip

Jane Miller craves order and calm. She suppresses her imagination and discourages creativity. So when Jane's daughter Mary grows up and leaves home, Jane gets angry. Naturally, the police refuse to help. They're just like her coworkers in the office, who only obey the rules when it suits them and don't understand how society should function. Chip Zdarsky’s story in Creepshow Vol 3 #1 ponders what happens when we violate another person’s right to view the world in the way they choose. It’s easy to belittle those who refuse to see things our way. But those who bind themselves in the heaviest chains may do so for a reason.

 

Art: Let ‘Er Trip

When Jane studies her daughter's art, Jane's lips form a line, and she presses her fingers against her head. Then, the first page fast-forwards as Jane slips on her coat to visit the police station. The color of her sweater may have changed, and grey streaks her square-cut brown hair, but she still wears a buttoned-up long-sleeve dress shirt, jeans, and boots. While Jane inhabits a world of textured color, white dots glow in the pink and blue sky above the Higher Heart's old farm buildings and the broken-down school bus. The cult leader may resemble Ben Franklin but doesn't practice the American founder's famous thrift in his red-lit home. Intriguingly, and despite her taste in art, Mary dresses less colorfully than her strait-laced mother.

 

 

Story: Scrimshaw

When a reporter hunts for a story about a remote island, the locals point him toward a lobster potter. In this second tale in Creepshow Vol 3 #1, the reporter finds the man at the Cutty Sark and asks him to share his story. The man seems reluctant but obliges when the reporter insults his town and helps himself to the man's beer. One night, while checking his pots, the lobsterman found a severed arm. Someone had carved a story onto the exposed radius and ulna. The lobsterman’s mind filled with visions of a Navigator fighting a storm to return home.

 

The lobsterman lived alone in his beach shack. He identified with the Navigator’s struggle and couldn’t banish the vision from his head. So, fate rewarded him with another chapter etched into a severed leg. Yet, like Herman Melville's novel Mardi, the Navigator’s seemingly unending tale stoked the fisherman's hunger for more. So, like any captivated reader, the fisherman sought out more chapters about his hero. James Stokoe’s story speaks to our insatiable hunger for a good story and reminds us how stories can usurp reality.

 

Art: Scrimshaw

The Creep hovers over the forested island guarded by a lighthouse. Inside the pub, the reporter extends a hand to the bedraggled lobsterman. In his tale, the lobsterman reaches into his pots and studies a severed arm before a full moon. Waves roil behind him. Tendrils of water fill the air as if the storm-tossed saltwater were transforming into a leviathan. James Stokoe’s red and blue ocean scene evokes blown glass and contrasts with the red-haired lobsterman's nights in the orange pub. In this richly drawn and colored tale, as the lobsterman again searches his pots beneath a green sky, red and blue letters slash diagonally across a panel. When the lobsterman sees a green figure with pink eyes crouching amid purple waves, red and blue briefly obscure the background. An aurora brightens the already colorful sky as the creature tosses the lobsterman a severed leg.

 

Lettering

Pat Brosseau lavishes black, uppercase words in white and colored dialogue balloons and narrative boxes on Let 'Er Trip. Music notes accompany a voice lifted in song in Creepshow Vol 3 #1’s first twisty tale, and the swirls of color filling the air infect the splat-like balloons. James Stokoe’s expressive uppercase letters in Scrimshaw offer a handwritten appeal. The dialogue and narrative range in size, while abundant sound effects heighten the lobsterman’s infectious story. Thanks to Image Comics and Skybound for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

People who hunger for more than they need pay for their greed, while those who seek the benefits of conventional society discover a world beyond anything they imagined in Creepshow Vol 3 #1.

 

Rating 9.6/10

 

To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.