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.
