HIT AND MYTH
Alterna Comics presents a new horror anthology of uncommon quality.

Morbid Myths #2
Edited by Chris Carpenter
Stories by Dale Mettan and Dwayne Biddix
Penciled by Dwayne Biddix
Inked by Gary Mitchell
Alterna Comics
Cover Price: $3

There have been horror comic hosts as long as there have been horror comics.

There have been great horror comic hosts (such as The Crypt Keeper and The Old Witch in EC Comics), semi-great horror comic hosts (such as Caine from House Of Mystery and Abel from House Of Secrets over at DC Comics), horror comic hosts who really don’t serve any useful purpose (such as Dr. Graves from the old Charlton comic The Many Ghosts Of Doctor Graves), and horror comic hosts that are only there because they were based on TV shows that had hosts (such as The Twilight Zone comics and the comic adaptation of Boris Karloff’s Thriller).

The best of the horror comic hosts offer a narrative to introduce the story; tell us how we should feel about the “victim” of the story; (if we should feel sorry for the characters or if they deserve their fate) and then provide a kind of “closure” that gives the reader a sense of safety after they’ve just seen something terrible.

In short, a good horror comic takes a reader somewhere strange and terrible and a good horror comic host is the bus driver that gets you there, abandons you, and brings you back home afterward.

Morbid Myths is a horror comic with a pretty good host — his name is Job and he wears half a skull as a mask over half his face, the kind of half-mask The Phantom In Opera used in the terrible movie adaptation of the terrible Broadway musical.

How do I know it’s a mask and not half of his actual face stripped to the bone?

Because the skull part is larger than the “human” part of his face, not smaller (but, hey, thanks for asking …).

Job begins Morbid Myths by pulling a spike from a creature who looks like it may have come from a H.P. Lovecraft story. Job explains the spike is now a supernatural object because it came in contact with something supernatural. He then shows us his collection of supernatural artifacts. So far, we’re off to a good start.

Job then introduces us to the story of “The Box” about a mailman whose curiosity leads to his untimely — well, his untimely SOMETHING — the reader is left to speculate exactly what happened to him.

“The Box” is a pretty good horror story. The art is very good and the pacing moves the tale right along, which is the chief requirement of a horror story.

However, it reaches the same unsatisfying conclusion as many current horror movies — it expects the audience to supply its own ending.

As Stephen King once pointed out, to make a classic horror story, at some point you have to “flip the cards over” and let the reader see what the writer has been building up to. When you know what the menace was — for example, a giant alien cockroach — you feel a sense of relief that the giant cockroaches haven’t reached your home yet and you move on.

Besides, if I want to create my own ending to a horror story, I’ll WRITE one, not read one. I read horror comics to be amazed and shocked, not to be bewildered.

The next story in issue #2 of Morbid Myths is called “Tourist Trap.” Again, the art and pacing are great and the story conclusion is not ambiguous.

A couple check into a haunted hotel, but the husband doesn’t believe in the supernatural and thinks it’s all just a big joke until the true horror is revealed. This is a brief but very satisfying horror story — creepy, startling, and violent.

Overall, Morbid Myths is a great effort with great art, good pacing a good horror comic host — and some good stories. Even the one I didn’t particularly like was told with style and craftsmanship. Neither stories get bogged down with superlative narration.

The creators of Morbid Myths are very talented and it’s exciting to see people who put this much creativity into horror comics.

I recommend Morbid Myths and will be following it with interest.

Available at the Alterna Comic Shop.