Reviewer: Kevin S. Mahoney
Story Title: N/A
Written by: Brian Pulido
Penciled by: Juan Jose Ryp
Inked by: Juan Jose Ryp
Colored by: Andrew Dalhouse
Lettered by: N/A
Creative Director: Mark Seifert
Publisher: Avatar
Translating a known property (television show, novel, movie) into a new medium is tricky business. On the one hand, (razor edged or otherwise) absolute faithfulness to the spirit of the source material must be maintained. On the other hand, a strict transliteration of the previous incarnation of the property leaves the creators of the translated work little or no room to move or grow. It’s a delicate balance that a can anger either fans of the old format or fans of the new medium, depending on how much each is wooed by the new set of creators. Sometimes nothing needs to change to create a very different kind of success (the recent Sin City movie comes to mind) and sometimes a lot of things are radically changed, and yet the piece succeeds in spite of it (Kubrick’s The Shining). For every miraculous transformation like that, one must expect 101 flops, near misses, and outright corruptions. This is NOT one of the blessed projects.
Before ripping this issue a new wound, I really need to come clean with something: I am a monumental N.O.E.S. fan. I’ve seen every movie more than a few times, even the cruddy ones like Freddy’s Dead and Freddy Vs. Jason. When other kids went out and got stoned the weekend after their first attempt at the SAT’s, I took my spending money and rented the first seven films on VHS and watched them back to back over the course of two nights in an empty house during stormy weather. It was a laugh, a thrill, and one hell of a lot safer than getting blitzed on the local shore. So maybe my fond and fiendish memories are painting this initial attempt in and unjustly harsh light, but somehow I don’t think I dreamt these shortcomings up.
First, and foremost, certain mistakes were made. The most glaring of which is the incorrect fourth verse of the infamous jump rope chant. Anyone working with some actual attention to the original films would know that “never stay up late” is not only a mistranslation, but an easy method of suicide in the small town of Springwood. Since a character in this very comic is killed via a sedative shot that both she and her captors know to be lethal, any decent editor or horror film buff should have clued in the creators that something was inconsistent. Nearly as disappointing, several teenagers in the story seem cribbed from the films; even their demises bear to striking a resemblance to prior bad acts. Part of the fun of the film franchise was its ability to satirize vices of today’s teens. With the exception of the cosmetically augmented kill on page thirteen, these kids could be children of the 80’s, but not this decade. It is not even a shame that all the teens showcased in this initial episode die; none of them showed much merit.
The art in this one-shot runs far gorier than the films ever did. If that’s a reflection on today’s tougher teen audiences, it might even seem unnoticeable… to them. To the old fans of the series (where the violence was less splatter and more snappy patter), it’s really disappointing. The subtlety and creativity just seem lacking here. It might be a consequence of the lax guidelines of later horror films, but there was something suspenseful and resonant about leading up to the slaughter but not showing the coup de grace. Still, the art team deserves credit for the nuts and bolts of their work. There is a rich amount of detail in this issue, everything from readable newspaper headlines to subtle pokes at the title’s publisher. The colors seem to fit the setting. The teenagers are distinct individuals (if a trifle over-caricatured), and cannot be confused with one another or with the lesser characters of the story. If the art team involved in this special had been a bit more faithful to the mood of the films, and a bit less enamored of the attention getting gross-out, they really could’ve done some fine work here.
