Halloween Man #3
vs. The Invisible Man, Part 3 of 4
Written by Drew Edwards
Art and Lettering by Sergio Calvet
Halloween Man is a straight up indie comic book. You probably won’t find it in your local comic shops, and you won’t see it on the racks at any chain bookstores, but you can find it online. Before today, I had heard about the character, but I’ve never read a single issue. And I’m glad that has been rectified. The comic is about a reanimated corpse that fights monsters alongside his caretaker/girlfriend. It deal with horror elements, and Halloween Man wears a jack-o-lantern t-shirt, which I have to say is a style that I envy.
In the current Halloween Man storyline, writer Drew Edwards is taking the title character through a very not-for-all-ages story, as the hero is trying to stop and kill an unknown monster who is murdering workers at a nearby fetish house. In the previous issue, we find out, however, that the killer is The Invisible Man, who has the opportunity to do and torture whoever he chooses because no one can see him commit his felonious acts of malice. This is the penultimate chapter in this storyline and it leaves me wanting more.
Edwards takes the reader through an interesting story in this book that guides you through the murders of each sex worker and how it effects the psyche of Halloween Man as those he is trying to protect keep winding up dead. And one of the most admirable qualities about this book is that it’s not just using sex workers as a window dressing for victims. One of the main characters is a former sex worker, they’re working to protect them, which is truly a great thing about this book. The story is great, and it doesn’t fall into obvious or insulting tropes for the characters. So, excellent work on that part.
As a comic, though, Halloween Man does have some flaws. The dialog can be choppy at times, and that can be cause for some confusion. There were parts were I honestly didn’t know what the dialog was intending to tell me. But that’s going to be a problem when you have such an honest indie title that doesn’t go through several editors that pick out every flaw. Even books at DC and Marvel suffer this kind of problem. The other issue that I had with the comic was the art work. I absolutely loved Sergio Calvet‘s style. The shape that he gave to the characters was appealing, and I liked a lot of his line work, and the colors were great. My main problem, though, was that pretty much all the character looked alike. All of the men had the same facial expressions and body types, while all of the women looked the same, as well. As you’re reading this, the only way to tell a lot of the characters apart is either their hair or clothing. Halloween Man is the exception though, because he has heavy scarring on one side of his face. But considering that this book is free from their official website, a lot of these issues didn’t really bother me like they would in a $3.99 book. And again, the story completely makes up for the flaws of the series.
It’s definitely not for everyone, but Halloween Man is a comic that I really enjoyed and will continue to read. And if you can handle adult subject matter with a wacky (not juvenile) sense of humor, I think you should give this a shot.
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