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RADAR // 1.23.03 by the SAVANT Staff On Our Radar • Holding Pattern BLACK
HARVEST MOON I have a thing for the end of the world. It's largely my Dad's fault. As the head of English at the school I went to, he had a certain amount of freedom in dictating the sort of books we studied. Amongst them were Z FOR ZACARIAH, the story of the last person on Earth and what happens when she finds out she's not alone and DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS. TRIFFIDS especially, with it's deserted streets and uniquely bleak worldview sticks in my mind to this day. The silence that greets the main character as he stumbles out into the world was essayed in 28 DAYS LATER but done so much better here. Whilst the carnivorous mobile plants are, to be fair, a bit of a stretch, there's a palpable sense of doom to TRIFFIDS that entranced and terrified me in equal proportion. BHM has the same feel but, if anything, is darker. Where Wyndham's material tends to be basically optimistic, BHM is the first piece of legitimately nihilistic horror I've read in a long time. Here, the world's ended and everything from personal dignity to identity has gone with it. Five months ago, demons appeared in Los Angeles. They took the city in days and swarmed out from there, the world changing as they moved through it. A few weeks into the invasion, Bobby and Lisa decide to leave their Nevadan home and join the stream of refugees fleeing, amongst other things, a wave of vampirism. They get seperated in an attack and Lisa is taken, replaced by something with her memories, her skin and none of her morals. Trapped between what used to be the woman he loved and the need to escape the herd he's now part of, Bobby finds himself forced to act but with no idea of what to do. BHM is a stunningly bleak piece of fiction, focussing on the relationship between Bobby and Lisa and how her 'condition' affects it. The exchanges between the two are wonderful, crackling with the sort of familiar banter of a long term couple but with an incredibly dark edge. There's an almost noirish quality at times, with the thing wearing Lisa manipulating Bobby into betraying his friends and even his humanity. In the hands of a lesser writer, this would be misogynistic tripe. However, Stock takes great pains to keep BHM about a great deal more than a vampiric Russ Meyer escapee. This is why the story keeps coming back to their relationship, and the eventual realisation that Lisa needs Bobby as much as he needs her. They are, as Bobby puts it, echoes of the old Lisa to this creature and it's those echoes that lead her to help him out. In it's own black hearted way, BHM is a love story and a remarkably good one at that. In this case, love really does conquer all, be it humanity, vampirism or the end of the world. Ultimately, it's this intelligence that makes BLACK HARVEST MOON. As well as a fantastic take on what happens AFTER the world ends, it's a complex, occasionally touching and often blackly humorous love story. With expressive, hyper-realistic art from Colin Stanford, this is a quality package. Clever, smart and disturbing, BLACK HARVEST MOON is everything a good horror story should be. (Alasdair Stuart) * * * DOCTOR
SPONGE #1 and #2 There's a thin line between comedy and horror. SCREAM beat us round the head with this, and every film that's ever used the 'Cat leaping out of the fridge' or 'Severed hand/gauntlet touching character's shoulder' gag has referenced this. It's become routine, plotting the roller coaster of a story by placing a scare straight after a joke and vice versa. Keep the audience rattled, keep them on their toes. Chris Askham understands this in a way that few people do. Superficially, everything about DOCTOR SPONGE screams 'black comedy'. From the character's name to his obsession with sheep, the first instinct you have is to sit back and enjoy the kind of broadstroke horror comedy that turns up a lot on the English small press scene. After a couple of pages though, it becomes clear that that's not all that's going on. Most of the first issue is taken up with the eponymous Doctor delivering a short message to his patients. It's a smart narrative move, drawing the reader in and letting them have a close look at the series' protagonist, as well as giving Askham an opportunity to introduce us to his world. In this case, it's a nightmarish asylum run by a man who no longer cares and who is assisted by a pair of silent twins and a nurse who calmly informs the patients that their families are either dead or have abandoned them, that their dogs have been put to sleep and worst of all the doctor's sheep are being tampered with. Issue 2 expands the focus somewhat, giving us some background on Sponge's world. At some point in the future, the Church gains final dominance over the vast majority of the planet. Sponge's asylum, on an island surrounded by mines and sheep in roughly equal proportion is one of the last holdouts, if nothing else because even the Church is frightened to go there. Besides, with one of their own, General Synod, on the loose they have troubles of their own… Like the other Askham piece I reviewed, TALES FROM THE MORTUARY, this is a joke you'll either get or you won't. It's never laugh out loud funny, but is always dakly amusing and in the scenes featuring Synod and Zeal, the soldier sent to find him, there's a hint of something far larger and darker than what we've seen to date. However, if you don't find the thought of a tiny, wizened psychopath with a sheep fixation running an asylum amusing, then this isn't for you. If it does sound like your sort of thing though, chase this up. Askham's chunky, black and white artwork has an almost cartoony quality at times but never fails to be expressive and easy to follow whilst his scripting is well paced, confident and blackly funny. Not for everyone, but if you like your humour with a shot of bile, you'll like this. (Alasdair Stuart)
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