All right, get this: you know all of those old Universal monsters? Those weren’t guys in make-up or rubber body suits. They were for REAL! Here’s the problem: these days, what with Hollywood relying on CGI effects, the monsters are kind of out of work. They’re making the convention rounds, but that’s about it. The only one who still manages to find somewhat steady work is Carl, the Wolf Man, but that’s only if you count cheap direct-to-DVD productions.
Then, something goes wrong: Devil Fish (aka, the Creature from the Black Lagoon) dies under mysterious circumstances. Well, maybe not so mysterious, since he went for a dip in a pool in which he’d dissolved a shit-ton of cocaine, but you get the idea. His obituary makes the papers as kind of a curiosity, and people quickly forget about him.
Everyone except Izzy, the Invisible Man, who was Devil Fish’s closest friend. He has just made an announcement at a convention to screen one of Devil Fish’s private films, a controversial piece where apparently all of the old Universal monsters were having an orgy at his place. Why is Izzy doing this? To stir up trouble? To get back at all the people who had forgotten his friend?
We may never find out. Even as Carl works hard at getting enough of his old compatriots together to stage an intervention on Izzy, we discover that someone has taken the initiative of killing the Invisible Man. Now the assembled monsters must work together to find the murderer . . . or there may be other monster slayings soon.
What a fun little idea! It’s a sheer delight to watch Carl get together with the Mass (aka, the Blob) and Robrain (a robot powered with a brain floating in juices), among others. There is nothing like reading about what it would be like if such monsters really did exist in Hollywood and how they would act if they did. Writers Harold Sipe and Christopher Sebela deserve a lot of credit for parading this wonderful idea around.
Equally deserving of credit is artist Lee Leslie, whose rough edges perfectly depict these everyday monsters and their lifestyles. Carl looks exactly as one would expect with his hirsute features, and even though he wears a sleeveless checkered shirt to signify his backwoods attitude, he also keeps his hair slicked back like a Hollywood star.
Luckily, this book is much easier to find outside of conventions. Don’t hesitate in seeking this one out. You’ll have so much fun, you’ll hate it when you have no more story to read.
SCREAMLAND #1
Writers: Harold Sipe and Christopher Sebela
Artist: Lee Leslie
Publisher: Image
27 pages
$2.99
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