kyleoverkill's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark lighthearted medium-paced

3.75

djl's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious

3.75

lyrafay12's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark funny lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

4.5

graypeape's review

Go to review page

5.0

Before I even start talking about the stories, the art in this is just gobsmackingly gorgeous! The rich, vivid colors, the character design, the whole spooky mood is stunning. Five stars for the art alone. The text could be the stupidest crap I've ever read, and I would still buy this for all the beautiful illustration contained within.
The stories are good, though. Rip-roaring adventures filled with interesting characters, mutated semi-humans, extra-terrestrials, creepy, oogy villains, and a few humans thrown in to round things out. If this was a movie, it'd be something you watch at midnight on a basic cable channel, or in a rinky-dink theater with a group of weirdos that have seen it dozens of times and built a cult around it. The dialogue is filled with cheesy noir lines that will make you chuckle and groan simultaneously. This just pushed all the right buttons for me, can you tell?
Our main characters are Doc Horror, a sort of underworld enforcer/mad scientist/occult personage who does his thing with the help of his crew: Polychrome, an icy wraith with a spark of warmth hidden in her breast; the Gunwitch, a silent, gun-wielding specter whose main purpose is to serve as a bodyguard for Doc's supernaturally skilled daughter Evening, also known as Halloween Girl, who carries a plastic pumpkin filled with possessed toys. Add to this a gang of lab-created human-animal hybrids with some interesting talents, and you've got the crew. We get origins in bits and pieces over the course of the stories, satisfying at least some curiosity, and lots of battling evil mad scientists (as opposed to not particularly evil mad scientists- pretty sure all scientists are mad here), and hybrid creatures with bad attitudes. There are some quieter stories, too, and these might be my favorites; they tend to feature Halloween Girl, and she's a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed Troll Bridge, which involves a wish gone awry, leading to a fun trip through different story worlds, including that of a certain samurai rabbit...
At any rate, I really, really enjoyed this, and I'm hoping for another omnibus edition of Doc Horror and his ghoul squad's exploits in the future. Please? Kthxbai!
More...