Caitlin > Recent Status Updates

The Monster of Blackenstyne (Not to Be Confused With Blackenstein): Fun, over the top blaxploitation inspired story. Art is great, fits the tone and story perfectly. Seems set up for Blackenstyne to be a bizarre protector of the neighborhood. Always happy to see David F. Walker's name on a comic.

The Last Night in Waverly: A witness to a hostile alien takeover holds his family hostage trying to explain the danger. This wasn't anything groundbreaking, could have been better if there weren't pages of exposition in the middle that read like old sci-fi movie plots. Art was serviceable, nothing particularly memorable.

Lady of Rage: An abused woman slips into a coma after her partner attacks her, but a dark presence inside of her gets revenge. Dug the art for this one, story was solid enough (maybe needed less panels of the abuse, and I don't think we ever find out the woman's name, which is kind of odd and annoying tbh).

Suckers Revenge: Woo this one... feels like concept art. Not very interesting.

Ezra the Hunter: Definitely one of the better ones thus far. Great artwork, very detailed and excellent line work. The use of black and white with color onomatopoeias (and text boxes) was unique, although I would have liked a little more color. Fun monster hunter noir.

The Removers: A pair of hunters goes after their prey. Nothing remarkable in terms of story. It's obviously set up to be a series, this at least feels like it hit a natural end point. The art was a bit dark and soft around the edges, like it was not quite complete, but I also kind of liked it.

The Hill: A lesson in disrespecting the gods. The art had a dreamy, washed out quality that I thought fit the vibes. Nothing remarkable, but fine.

Hell to Pay: Two scientists attempt to travel back in time to save the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, but end up in hell witnessing the punishment of the Klansmen responsible. The Devil kicks them out of hell.

Kind of an interesting story, but the writing was a little clunky. The art was okay, not my favorite but it had personality.

Evil Lives Part One: Our Lady of Endor: I don't think it's effective to put one part of a longer comic in an anthology like this. The story goes nowhere and nothing here was particularly engrossing for me to find the rest of the comic to check out.

Untitled work about a Klansman: The dead rise to take revenge during an attempted lynching. Simple and cathartic, some zombie ripping action. The art was perfectly matched to the story.

The Breaks: A woman on her deathbed goes to hip hop heaven, but I don't know that I'd really call it horror, though. There are some panels about the loss of friends, and as she's dying, the medical team trying to save her are represented by creepy skeleton zombies, but it ends on a note of hope/joy. Loved the art, very stylized and full of character.

Tasty!! Itchy!!: While the art had some cool panels, most of it was dark and I couldn't make heads or tails of most details. In terms of story, it's just an average supply run in a zombie wasteland gone wrong. There was mention of radioactive cockroaches but they did not factor into the conflict. 1/5 stars.

Emotional Technologies: I'm giving up here. It's the last story but I do not think I'm the audience for this art critique essay? I don't know that I have context/understanding to engage with this.

Retouch/Switch: I'm not a fan of the perspective switching, I'm not sure how many people this involves? I'm thinking there's at least two versions of one person (a trans man), but I'm not really sure. Yet another example of something that barely engages with kink, so it feels really out of place to me.

Maybe I'm just not absorbing this one because I want to be done with this book.

The Voyeurs: I quite liked this story, but I'm not sure how to feel about the kink part just being a transphobic peeping Tom. Loved the tenderness and humanity of the couple in this story, but this is another one that isn't quite what I expected for this collection.

The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror: A very unique story, loved the setting, the gothic vibes, and the sapphic desire. This one was fun.

Scissors: This one is one of the few that has felt like a mutual celebration of kink, tbh. There's a level of fear, but that is part of Dee's desire. I kind thought more of the stories would feel like this.

Gospodar: One of the best written stories In this collection thus far. The prose is lush, and Greenwell balances eroticism, humanity, and fear so well. This encounter between the narrator and the man he meets does become very scary and violent, but it does feel purposeful, if shocking and stomach turning. It seems that this is an excerpt from a book, so maybe that's why it feels so fleshed out.

Reach: Felt a little uncomfortable with how the narrator recognizes their wife's anger with certain acts (to the point of not speaking to them for days), but continues to do them because the wife doesn't safeword. I guess this is to allude to the unreachable part the narrator is hoping to access, but idk, this one didn't really land for me.