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Published by: Dark Horse Comics
Released on: Dec. 17, 2014
Writer: various
Artist: various
Cover: Jim Pavelec
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Click HERE for last issue's write-up.
Eerie returns for the second time this year, this time bringing some Christmas cheer with it. Per usual, two new tales and one reprint from the Warren years fill the pages, and Jim Pavelec provides one hell of a cover to house the black-and-white insides. The whole “Santa is an anagram for Satan†thing takes on a bit of a different meaning after looking at that painting. It may well be the best cover so far for this series.
Before the stories start the inside cover features the work of Tom Neeley and Keenan Marshall Keller, they who give us the mind-blowing ape comic “The Humans†over at another publisher. They have no morals, and nothing is off limit to them. Not even the hanging corpse of a little girl. Vile! Love it! A Bernie Wrightson illustration bookends the back of the book, so don't miss that.
Kelley Jones adapts a story by M.R. James called “The Ash Treeâ€. In it, a woman is tried and convicted of being a witch, and whose dying words were “there will be guests at the hall.†Shut up and swing, witch. The family who ratted her out pays for it for the next 50 years, and when some townsfolk look into things on Christmas Eve, they find something fantastically nasty. If you hate spiders and babies (and who doesn't?) this one might give you a nice chill. Kelley Jones should have been drawing for this title 30 years ago.
“Run…Run…As Fast As You Can†is a sweet little yarn written by Landry Q. Walker, with art by Dev Maden. A meek and oppressed housewife learned a thing or two about making cookies from her mother, and this Christmas she's made some as she always has. All is normal except for one thing: her cookies have never before tried to cut her husband up. Don't go shedding a tear though, he's just as big an asshole as her father was, and she remembers everything her mother taught her about making this special batch. Maden's artwork and gray tones make this one fine looking story.
“The Night the Snow Spilled Blood!â€, by Don McGregor, art by Tom Sutton. This one is reprinted from Warren Publishing's Eerie #38 from 1972. A jealous husband murders the playboy hunk who has been boinking his wife. He visits the man on Christmas Eve and gives him a third eye socket, but is soon racked with remorse and seeing the man's bloody face all over the place. Even the snow is bloody, as it falls from the sky. The latter phenomenon is not only experienced by the man through his visions, but also by people around him, thanks to a chemical mishap that caused the snow to look red. It's actually a pretty dumb story, but with the Christmas theme of the issue and all...it makes sense why it was picked to reprint. Tom Sutton's art is cool though, and one panel looks like something Joe Dante could have swiped for the caroling scene in Gremlins.
Good God, six months between issues is just way too long to wait for another issue, but wait we shall. At least there're the archived volumes of reprints Dark Horse issues at a faster rate but it really would be nice to get more new stuff and more often. This issue, even with its Christmas-themed stories, is a darn good one. Well, the new stories at least. We just have to wait until summer for another issue.
