Murder Most Funny: Bret M. Herholz takes murder off the streets and puts it back in the mansion where it belongs.

Diary Of The Black Widow
Written/illustrated by Bret M. Herholz
Alterna Comics
Cover Price: $3; Available Here

From Mack Sennett‘s silent “Keystone Cops” films to Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau, there has been a rich tradition of bumbling, awkward — oh, let’s just say it — stupid cops in films.

But American comic books, born at the end of the 1930’s “gangster era” of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, have always been a bit more supportive of the police.

During the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was featured in many comic books and often seemed more popular with comic book creators than with most of the guys who occupied the Oval Office. Commissioner Gordon may not be the world’s greatest detective, but he has consistently been Batman’s friend and ally — and maybe the only completely honest cop ever employed by the Gotham City Police Force. Comic book cops from Captain George Stacy in Spider-Man to Sam and Twitch in Spawn, may be cynical, but most of them are good at their jobs.

So it’s kind of a novelty to see a dumb cop in a comic book and they don’t come much dumber than the Detective Inspector in Alterna Comics Diary Of The Black Widow.

The 3-issue series, written, penciled and inked by Bret M. Herholz, features an Inspector (he may have a actual name, but it wasn’t given in the issue I read), that has detective skills as keen as Barney Phyfe or Chief Wiggins.

Group Dynamics: The Mercuri Brothers Superteam Has Family Issues

The Mercuri Bros.
Prodigal Son Press
$2.25 cover price
Written/illustrated by Thomas Slaski

There was a time when superhero groups were just a cluster of popular characters thrown together like a cheap jewelry in a thrift store shoebox.

The original Justice Society was composed of superheroes (or ‘Mystery Men’, as they were called back in the day) who all had their own comic book features. One day, some enterprising publisher decided that if The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and all the rest could carry their own features (and some of them had enough juice to carry their own comic book titles), then having them all on one big superteam might move readers to pony up a bit more of their disposable income.

The whole superteam concept changed with the introduction of the Fantastic Four, who were not just a group of heroes, but a family. Johnny and Sue Storm were siblings, Reed married Sue, and Ben Grimm was like the best friend who visits you after college and won’t go away. For all their bickering and quarrels, they are held together by family ties.

Family is also central to Thomas Slaski‘s new comic book, The Mercuri Bros.

The rise, fall, and return of Jim Starlin’s science fiction superhero.

My favorite comic books have always been a strange mixture of imagination and death.

The technical marvels of planet Krypton spark the imagination, but the Superman story doesn’t begin until his world explodes.

Batman’s cool crime fighting tools, including the Batmobile, are wonderfully inventive but are driven by a mission that began with the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents.

Hal Jordan’s ring — fueled by imagination and will power — came to him as a gift from a dying alien.

And Jim Corrigan and Boston Brand wouldn’t even have become superheroes if they weren’t dead.

Death and imagination are also the key elements of The Weird, which began as a four-issue mini-series in 1987. The title character disappeared for 20 years and returned in 2006 as a back-up feature in the recently concluded Mystery In Space eight-issue limited series.

The original The Weird series, written by Jim Starlin and illustrated by Bernie Wrightson and Dan Green, began with an evil mystic bringing an evil energy being to Earth from another dimension. The portal opened by the mystic, Jason Morgan, also brought along another energy being, whose arrival interested the Justice League.

Students Of The Unusual
By 3 Boys Productions
$3.50

Like everyone else under the age of 70, I missed the golden age of the horror anthology comic book.

In fact, if it weren’t for reprints of the those wonderful old EC comics like Vault Of Horror and the 1970’s Marvel reprint titles like Chamber Of Chills and Where Monsters Dwell, I wouldn’t have even KNOWN there WAS a golden age of horror anthology comics.

Sure, there have been some great attempts to revive the genre in recent decades. DC Comics published Wasteland and the brilliant Flinch series several years ago. And the late, lamented Pacific Comics had the extraordinary Twisted Tales series, but for the past 20 years, the horror anthology has been deader than the TV variety show.

Now, 3 Boys Productions have not only breathed some life into the genre, they’ve actually got it to wake up — like the unholy experiment of a mad scientist — and lurch around the laboratory for another go-around.

I have been a fan of their comic Students Of The Unusual since I saw the first cover (featuring Satan as a test tube baby) at the local comic book store in 2004. Although it takes awhile for each issue to come out (the last one I have is the Giant-Sized Extra Credit Special published in 2006), a small group of talented artists and writers keep plugging away to produce a consistently terrific horror comic.

In the first issue alone, we have Moko Makai, by Terry Cronin and Ply Bernatene, a neat little story of tattooing and headhunting; Under The Bridge by Cronin and Jorge Calamato, featuring a homeless man meeting a troll that lives under a bridge; and Recalcitrant Jones and The Deadbeats, about a guy who sells his soul to put together a rock band that includes Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon — and Lawrence Welk on the accordion.

Actually, Recalcitrant Jones had a great spin-off/special in 2005. With a freewheeling story by Cronin and cartoony but stylish art by J. Chris Campbell (art that reminded me of the neat art by Shag I have enjoyed in the magazine Juxtapoze).

That special was also serialized in later issues of Students Of The Unusual, but Recalcitrant Jones has been absent from comics far too long and is overdue for a new appearance.

Of course, one of the biggest problems with horror anthology titles is that in four or five pages, you don’t really have a chance for a lot of characterization. It’s hard to care that Mel gets chopped up with an axe unless you have some emotional investment — which is difficult to do when you’ve only met Mel a few panels ago.

But this is one of the strengths of Students Of The Unusual — for the most part, the stories really draw you in quickly. One reoccurring device in the series is Uncle Pat telling gruesome (and sometimes darkly funny) “campfire stories” to a group of boys. The boys are his “students” of the “unusual” stories he presents. This “campfire stories” approach to comic book horror anthology works great for a variety of reasons.

One reason is that it immediately establishes a more intimate mood — the reader instantly becomes part of the group hearing the story for the first time. Also, the reader doesn’t have to work so hard “suspending disbelief.” Even if the story involves a giant squid or a manatee mermaid, it is, after all, just a campfire story. You really don’t have to believe every word for the story to be compelling and eerie.

This is storytelling in its purest form: no backstory to establish, no need for a Rod Serling-type narration to tell you why you should be interested, no elaborate set-up for a tale that slouches toward the inevitable “punchline” — just a strange little story told by an unreliable narrator, who doesn’t really care if you believe him or not.

The satisfaction a reader gets from this kind of horror story lies mostly in the skill of the storyteller and the consolations — if any — that the horror may be only the product of an unstable narrator’s wild imagination.

When the story is done, the reader safely becomes a refugee from the “land of the weird” and is back, safe and sound in their own familiar reality. After all, horror stories are fun places to visit, but you sure don’t want to live there.

In Students Of The Unusual this “campfire tales” approach is done as well as I’ve ever seen any horror story presented in a comic book. I’ll take the “Uncle Pat” style over — let’s say — “Caine” the narrator of the old House Of Mystery comic book anthology, because Uncle Pat isn’t working overtime to be creepy.

I’ve seen the Students Of The Unusual MySpace page (link below) and, like most independent comic creators, 3 Boys Productions have been hitting the convention circuit to drum up business. I understand they are doing well and have attracted new fans, but I hope they have a new issue published soon.

Rarely have I read an anthology like Students Of The Unusual that is weird and funny and subtle and suspenseful and makes me genuinely anticipate the next issue.

Cronin and company deserve the support of horror comics fans to make sure there will always be a “next” issue — and many more after that.

You can visit the 3 Boys Production MySpace page HERE.

HEROES IN BIRMINGHAM
Created and Written by Rachel Kadushin and Ruben Caldwell
Best Friends Publications
$2.95

The conflict between the paranoid and the privileged is one of the great reoccurring themes of 20th century pop culture. It was used effectively as the climax to the classic H.G. Wells movie THINGS TO COME in 1931 and in Rorschach’s conversations with his therapist in Alan Moore‘s WATCHMEN. The theme has been used in movies as diverse as TANKGIRL, SCARFACE and ROLLERBALL, and is at the very center of just about all the really good Oliver Stone movies.