Holliston: Friendship is Tragic

by Greg Wright, Stephen Sharar (Illustrator, pencils/inks), Joshua Werner (Illustrator, colors/letters)

The characters from the TV series appear in this stand-alone adventure, brought to comics for the very first time. Adam, Joe, Corri, and Laura are about to discover just what their friendship can handle when Adam finds a cursed credit card and buys his friends some Halloween gifts. The presents are perfect ... a little too perfect.

Soon, mad killers, giant monsters, and evil aliens are on the loose, as well as the deadliest threat of all: success! Will the gang sell out? Will they ever speak to each other again? What's the return policy for cursed credit card purchases? Find out in Holliston: Friendship Is Tragic!

The TV show Holliston is created by Adam Green. Holliston: Friendship Is Tragic is written by Greg Wright (Monstrous, Wild Bullets, Last Monster Standing), with pencils and inks by Stephen Sharar (Up the River, Wild Bullets), and colors and letters by Joshua Werner (Zombie Rush: Riot, Jack of Spades, The Creepshow in Necrogeddon).

58 pages, Paperback

Published October 2, 2017

About the author

Greg Wright has written several books: TABLOID!: Once Upon a Deadline, Claim, Monstrous, Wild Bullets, and the Holliston graphic novels.

Greg earned a Ph.D. in American Literature and Film from Michigan State, and his award-winning fiction has appeared in a variety of journals. He has taught screenwriting, media studies, creative writing, and composition.

If he had a castle with a secret passage, he’d probably tell everybody and make it just a regular passage.

Reviews

[Katie Blanchard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Holliston: Friendship is Tragic was a comic book written by Greg Wright, and the illustrations were done by Stephen Sharar. It is a comic based off of a television series that I have never watched. If I had actually watched the television series I probably would have found this story funnier, or related to it more. I, however, found that the storyline jumped around a lot and it took me awhile to get what the plot line of the comic book actually was. To me, it kind of felt like it was a children's book rated pg 13. This made me wonder who would want to read this book. If it was aiming for a teenager’s audience, it could use some work. I being a teenager, found it weird and also found that the humor wasn’t very funny and sometimes made me want to stop reading. For example, In the middle of the book, a girl cuts herself up and makes art with her blood and becomes rich. This was the result of a doll telling her to do so. I feel like a very specific person would have to read it in order to find it funny because I was unamused and confused. I also felt like there was some background information missing in this story and that the characters were underdeveloped. This could, however, come from me not having watched the television series, but if you want someone to read this comic book that hasn’t watched it, putting in background information would be nice. Something besides the story itself was how the words were formatted. I am not a typical comic book reader so it took me a while to figure out the pattern to know what words were after which. Even after I figured out the pattern sometimes the words on the left were lower than the words on the right so I didn’t know what to read first. Of course, you could figure out what words came first by simply reading it but then you would miss the effect of reading them one after the other and it takes away from the story. On a positive note, I thought that the art in this comic book was really good and almost always captured your attention. The artist also did a good job of portraying what the characters were thinking and just overall made the scenes come to life.

[Nikolas Gottwald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holliston: Friendship is Tragic, the comic book written by Greg Wright and illustrated by Stephen Sharar was an overall witty and entertaining read, but I’m glad it was so short because I don’t know how much more of my time I’d be willing to spend reading something like this. I say it’s 3 star work, Greg can do better.

A quick disclaimer before I begin, I have not seen the show that this show is based off of and I’m reviewing it solely from that perspective.

This comic was very cookie-cutter and predictable. This made it extremely important for the audience to connect with the humor and characters, otherwise they wouldn’t be engaged at all. Personally, I found the humor of this comic to be pretty funny. I wasn’t laughing my ass off, but it was funny enough to keep turning the page. This is my opinion and I tend to like a lot of stupid comedy, so you might find this comic not funny by any means because it depends on the person. Although you could see how scenes would go before you turned the page, there were implications of creativity that I thoroughly enjoyed. I really liked how it built from two broke friends trying to plan a lame halloween party, to a giant Joe Kong battling a huge pinocchio thing in the middle of downtown Houston. The only thing I was very unhappy with was how the whole prepaid credit card was discovered. The whole thing felt lazily put together and rushed, not to mention the lack of attention focused on the slaughtered, yet innocent kitty. It was probably intended to be satire, which I normally enjoy, but this one just didn’t hit me.

Overall, was it worth the $5? Yes, but only if you can drop $5 on something you’ll never read again. Respectfully.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
If you click this link, you can find the website where I bought a digital pdf for the comic, as well as some other reviews and general information on the comic!!

[Danielle Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first comic book that I've ever read. The artwork is fun and appealing to me. I can see how it wouldn't appeal to an audience that regularly reads comic books though, mainly because there's nothing special about it. I also think that some pages are a bit busy, making the comic hard to read. As far as the story goes, it is about the characters from the Holliston TV series, but set on Halloween. The plot is basic-Adam and Joe want to throw a Halloween party, but don't have enough money. However, Adam finds a prepaid credit card, which solves this issue. It is soon revealed that this credit card is cursed, and whatever is bought with it is cursed as well. The plot goes from there. I found the writing to be a bit rushed. It could be that this is just how comic books are, but it was just a little unnatural to read. It also took me a few pages to realize that a lot of the dialogue was meant to be sarcastic or funny. Again, in my head, the sarcastic dialogue felt unnatural and rushed. Another factor that made the comic a bit less enjoyable was the fact that I'd never watched the original Holliston series. After looking it up, everything made a bit more sense. With that in mind I'd recommend reading the synopsis of the series in order to understand the comic. All in all, it's not one of the best things that I've read, but it's not the worst either. The comic at least got me interested in maybe picking up another comic book someday because it was relaxing to read a short and lighthearted story. However, I don't think I'd read another Holliston comic without at least watching an episode or two of the series, just so I could get a feel for the show's aura.

[Wolverinefactor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the tv show. I’m still bummed that every time a new season is planned it just falls apart. I don’t know why Green doesn’t just crowd source a new season.

Anyway, I bought this comic because I love the show and because it was on sale and signed (it’s like the third or fourth item I have signed by Green).

It sorta captures the show and characters. Some things feel a bit off and some of the characters look wrong.

For the asking price ($10-$15) you’re getting enough content to make s single issue ($4 value).

I still laughed a number of times and it was definitely fun. Fans will enjoy it but that’s about it.

I’m let down by the lack of content for the price but it was still alright.

[Robert Bussie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun read with humor and plenty of references to horror and pop culture.

The art is colorful and cartoony.

I have not seen the TV show this is based on yet. I may have enjoyed this book more if I had seen the show before reading it. The writing made me feel like I should already know the personalities of the characters and was missing out on something.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

The plot was so basic and the characters so 2D I din't even know why I read it. They seriously did not even stop to think twice about a MURDERED CAT. No funeral, no poor kitty, no OMG there might be a psychopath on the loose. The single star it gets goes out to voodoo shop girl.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious and full of shenanigans that stay true to the original show.