By: Tim Seeley (writer), Daniel Leister (artist), Mark Englert (colorist), Crank! (letterer) & James Lowder (edits)
The Story: Hack/Slash gets back to some of its early roots with a story involving musicians & the hellish dimension of Nef.
What’s Good: This issue really had all the calling cards of a classically good Hack/Slash. If you go back to the beginning of the series, there was involvement of the demonic realm of Nef with the slasher killers inhabiting the Hack/Slash universe and it’s fun to see the series going back to that. That’s especially true because Seeley is doing it in such a way that is very new reader friendly. So, if you’ve been lingering on the fence, this isn’t a bad jumping on point.
But, what sets Hack/Slash apart from the rest of the horror comics genre is its sense of humor. This is a really funny comic and credit for that really should be shared by both Seeley and Leister. The folks who get killed in this album are so annoying that you’re kinda happy when they get it. One is some kinda shallow pop starlet with some made-up name and a massive following after one album and the other victims are stand-ins for the stars of the Jersey Shore. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy seeing the slashers get those kinds of people. Were this a horror movie, the audience would cheer when they die. However, it isn’t all laughs because the killer really is scary so we’ve got something to laugh at and something to be frightful of at the same time.
There’s also two GREAT scenes with Pooch (the demonic Nef-beast turned good). I’d like to say that we can never get enough Pooch, but that’s probably not true. Part of Pooch’s charm is that he flashes through the comic for a few panels, cracks us up with his juxtaposition of earnest attitude and demonic appearance and then is gone. Pooch always leaves us wanting more.
The art is pretty good. As I’ve mentioned above, the feeling and tone of this book is completely a collaboration between Seeley and Leister. One of my tests for a comic is imagining what it would be like if someone else drew it. There are other artists who would capture this scary/funny combo, but Leister nails it month after month. There are also a lot of accomplished artists who would probably struggle with either the humor or the horror.
What’s Not So Good: Nothing too huge because this is a good comic. It felt like this issue was a little light on Cassie/Vlad and that’s always a shame. They were in here and had a lot to do, but they still felt like supporting characters in their own story for some reason. There were also a few scenes with music lyrics appearing in radio bubbles over the action. I don’t know if those bubbles didn’t work for me because I didn’t know the song, but the whole scene made me feel like I was left out of a joke.
And, I don’t want to belabor it because I say this every month, but I really don’t care for some of the way this comic is colored. I LOVE the color palate, but don’t enjoy seeing a colorist attempting to color anatomy and musculature onto a character. Trying to highlight in muscle contours is really hard and I just don’t think it comes off well in this issue. The muscles usually aren’t in quite the right places and they look too soft. Sometimes less is more.
Conclusion: A good funny/scary issue of Hack/Slash that fills a very unique niche on the comic shelves.
Grade: B-
-Dean Stell
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Filed under: Image Comics Tagged: Crank, Daniel Leister, Dean Stell, Hack/Slash, Hack/Slash #6, Hack/Slash #6 review, horror, Image, James Lowder, Mark Englert, review, Tim Seeley
