Meet Onas. He’s an ugly, bald man who has just entered a
midlife crisis. He’s compartmentalized his life into these segments: nagging,
driving, public humiliation, bullshit and bowling. He’s stuck with a wife he
hates (and the feeling is mutual), a job he can’t stand and a life that has
become one big pit of misery. Bowling is his only escape, and even that, he has
to confess, is boring. But it gets him away from the garbage of the rest of his
life.
He’s been having bad dreams lately. The world dissolves
around him into a hellish landscape, and the people who live there are no
longer human but hypersexed mutants and demons. And then there’s the Grinning
Man, who might not actually be a dream after all.
You see, after a relaxing evening knocking back pins, Onas
walks out and accidentally insults a group of bikers. As per his usual run of
bad luck, he prepares himself to be beaten to a pulp. Instead, he’s stabbed,
but it doesn’t take. That’s because the Grinning Man comes to his rescue and
slaughters the bikers. Reinvigorated by his brush with death, Onas feels like a
man for the first time in years. The first thing he does? He gets him some
puss-ay. The only problem is, good times don’t last long. There are demons
after the Grinning Man—who turns out to be Asmodeus himself—and they’re very
eager to find him. Eager enough to tear Onas’s life apart.
And that’s how we’re introduced to the world of STRANGLED
WITH A HALO, an indie book which promises to be a formidable force in Artists
Alley in the coming years. It is cleverly written by Jake Young with a lot of
great one liners. He sets the tone perfectly with Onas’s grim, depressing
narration. You can’t help but feel sorry for this poor fucker. You know this
series isn’t going to end well for him.
Mazzart is the perfect artist for the book. His work is
jagged and harsh, in your face and brutal. He makes Asmodeus look somehow like
a hard-partying biker, yet at the same time a very menacing villain. There is a
dream sequence in which Onas blows his brains out that must be seen to be
believed. And that last page . . . wow. Again, you’ve got to see it to believe
it.
This book’s just getting started. Better buy your ticket
before it’s too late to take the ride.
STRANGLED WITH A HALO #1
Written by Jake Young
Illustrated by Mazzart
Published by CAW Comics
18 pages
$4
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