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Cullen Bunn

Top 5 Comic Authors

Who are my top 5 comic authors? Let’s see!

Joe Hill

Locke & Key– need I say more? But I will! His six-volume horror/fantasy series is what put Hill on my radar years ago, but I have enjoyed many more books of his since then. With his Locke & Key series now on Netflix, and his novels and short-story collections in high demand, DC has given him a prestige project, his own label- Hill House Comics. This label had some great stories, plus adding in his very dark The Cape, has made Hill my go-to horror writer.

Cullen Bunn

The eight-volume eerie southern gothic fairy tale, Harrow County and necromantic horror trilogy Bone Parish make Bunn a favorite of mine. He writes creepy and suspenseful stories with excellent character development.

Faith Erin Hicks

Hicks is a double-whammy, for she both writes and illustrates. Her historical-fiction trilogy The Nameless City is timeless, and I demand a sequel to Friends With Boys! Her first YA book Comics Will Break Your Heart shows that she is as strong a writer as she is an artist.

Brian Wood

I almost didn’t put Wood down due to his sexual harassment allegations, but I have to be honest, I loved much of his early work. The seven-volume Viking saga Northlanders was fascinating, as was his two-volume series Rebels about colonial America. Due to the scandal, we will never know how the timely and gritty Briggs Land would have concluded.

Robert Kirkman

Invincible and The Walking Dead were both long-running series that I loved. That Kirkman wrote them concurrently for many years blows my mind. They both had huge casts and had their characters’ age, which I always like in stories, so kudos to him for creating two distinct and believable universes.

Honorable Mentions- Derf Backderf (My Friend Dahmer, Trashed, and Kent State) & Brian K Vaughn (Saga and Pride of Baghdad)

Who are your favorites, and why???

10

Dark Ark: Old Gods & The World That Waits

The first dark what-if tale of this series was fascinating. Many of us have heard the biblical story of Noah and the ark saving people and animals for the future, but this tale speculates that a sorcerer Shrae built an ark to save the unnatural animals. These next two volumes bring the Dark Ark to shore!

Old Gods- Volume Two

We get some backstory- showing Shrae’s parallel story to Noah’s, as he feverishly builds an ark, lying to the villagers that he will give them sanctuary. The few that he takes, are doomed to be fed to the monsters, and one horrible mother is very deserving of this fate. We find out how Janris and Khalee become friends, and we see how all of Shrae’s children are complicit in his dark deeds.

Shrae visits aquatic monsters Echidna and Typhon, children of the old Earth’s titans, who are the parents of the current monsters. These original Gods, have been all but forgotten, but demand tribute even as he tells them he is planning to save their monstrous children. He tells everyone what they want to hear, but backstabs everyone in his quest to keep the ark inhabitants alive. While this is based on a religious story, the narrative remains neutral, as you see Shrae balance duty vs morality.

The story ends with his ark safe, and the rain stopping. What awaits them now?

The World That Waits- Volume Three

Author Cullen Bunn has opened each volume with an introduction, and he immediately shares that there will be more of the story in a new series, called After The Flood. This is somewhat of a disservice to this story, which I thought would be the conclusion, as it then made the entire volume anti-climatic.

The story begins with two big events- Shrae’s first grandchild is born on the ark, and an island is sighted. Monsters and humans alike are eager to land and explore, but a surprise awaits them. Fallen angels, who survived the flood are there and immediately start hunting the ark inhabitants as they step off onto land. Khalee feels forced to take drastic measures and accepts her father’s dark magic herself to fight back against these new vicious foes. While the ark was certainly dangerous, they have now stepped out of the pan and into the fire, as landfall has just brought them more troubles. This, of course, sets up the next series that Cullen and the artist Juan Doe have planned.

The art in this volume was a big improvement from the previous two. While the humans remain blocky and indistinguishable from one another, the monsters get an upgrade. The purple-tinged pages of the monsters disembarking were drawn more precisely with some good action shots and interesting panel placement. The closeups of Nex, the vampire, definitely reminded me of the evil smile of DC’s Joker.

Overall, these three volumes told an interesting and sinister twist on the Biblical story of Noah, with Shrae’s parallel voyage. I’m also willing to check into the sequel, although on Goodreads I only see V1 of After The Flood, which was published in 2020, and none since then. Covid hit publishing hard, so I wonder if the entire scope of the story will eventually be wrapped up the way Bunn was hoping for.

-Nancy

0

Dark Ark: Forty Nights

Back in 2020, I read an issue of Dark Ark: Instinct through Free Comic Book Day, and I said, “This dark what-if tale was fascinating. Many of us have heard the biblical story of Noah and the ark saving people and animals for the future, but this tale speculates that a sorcerer Shrae builds an ark to save the unnatural animals.” I went back to the source material, as Instinct had been a one-off based on this first volume, and I am a fan of much of Cullen Bunn’s work.

Family man Shrae, known for his evil ways, has a parallel journey to Noah during the biblical flood but is trapped on board with gruesome monsters who are all bloodthirsty and not doing well with being confined in the ark alongside other creatures. Juxtaposed along with these monsters, are a pair of unicorns who bemoan that they should have been on Noah’s boat instead (and really are a sly wink to these mythical creatures’ fate). Humans are chained in a hold, obviously, they are to be used as feed for the creatures, and Shrae’s adult children struggle with this, as they all were fellow villagers at one time. When Naga, a serpentine creature is found killed, a murder mystery is established, with many suspects. Kruul, a manticore, who has odd and unhealthy shifting allegiances with the humans, is not to be trusted nor are the vampires. Angels visit this ark, mistaking it for Noah’s (I’m sorry- but come on! There are only two arks in this flooded world, and they go to the wrong one??) and tie Shrae and Noah’s fate together. If Noah’s ark doesn’t survive, neither will Shrae’s.

The art by Juan Doe was necessarily dark and sketchy with pink and red overtones. The various creatures were appropriately monstrous-looking, with many mystical creatures from legends and myths portrayed. I especially enjoyed two facing 9-panel pages that had Shrae interrogating the monsters about Naga’s death. However, the additional family members were hard to distinguish from one another, as all were drawn very blocky-like with no distinguishing characteristics.

There are two more volumes in this series, and I aim to read them too as I wish to find out how these monsters of yore fare on the ark and then upon landing in a new world.

-Nancy

5

The Sixth Gun: Cold Dead Fingers

As I am a big fan of Cullen Bunn, mostly because of his Harrow County and Bone Parish series, I have circled this title a few times but hadn’t found the time for it yet. Luckily for me, my Goodreads comics group choose this supernatural western for this month’s group read!

Set some years after the Civil War, we learn of six powerful guns, each containing a dark power. Confederate General Hume had discovered all six guns and divvied them up among his evil cohorts and wife Missy. But a priest was able to murder him and took control of Hume’s gun, as ownership only passes after the death of the owner. Dark magic is used to keep Hume in suspended animation, not truly dead, so his eternally youthful wife takes it upon herself to find the sixth gun and reunite it with her husband so he can use it to unleash further destruction. In a parallel journey, Drake Sinclair, formally one of Hume’s henchmen but who turned away from owning one of the other guns, wishes to obtain the sixth gun for himself. Missy’s Pinkerton detectives and Drake converge on the isolated farmstead of the former priest and his step-daughter Becky. Becky inadvertently grabs her step-father’s gun when he is killed in the shoot-out, now making her the sole owner of the gun. And now the battle for ownership of the gun begins!

The characters were intriguing- Drake was an anti-hero whose motives were a bit suspect, Missy was at first a damsel in distress but started gaining a backbone later in the story, Billjohn was a tough gunslinger who had a heart of gold, Missy was slavishly devoted to her husband, while Hume was a caricature of a crazed tyrant. There were several epic battles and a cliffhanger that points to more adventures for Drake and Becky.

The art by Brian Hurtt seemed much too cartoony at first, but I soon stopped noticing and I felt it fit the narrative. There were a lot of supernatural aspects to the story, and the loose art style represented it well, without having to get into realistically gruesome depictions. The action was depicted in four to six panels a page, one-page spreads were uncommon. As it’s set in the Old West there is an appropriately sepia look to the panels, along with red shading to represent the bloodshed and hellish landscapes. However, there was one very distracting art choice towards the end- writing out all the noise effects as words during one certain battle. Used sparingly, words can be used effectively in art, but it was overdone.

This proved to be a solid start to a long series- nine volumes with several spin-offs. While I don’t know if I will continue with it, this horror-imbued western appealed to me and I was glad that it was part of my Halloween reads this month.

-Nancy

0

Rogue Planet

Eight crew on the salvage vessel Cortes track a rogue planet because they believe it to have a large payload. But things don’t go as planned!

The crew members are introduced to the readers as they land on this unknown planet, with five crew venturing out to discover the never named payload. They immediately discover a graveyard of space ships that crash-landed, but that does not detour them, nor the large blobby creature that had multiple lungs, mouth and teeth that looms above them. Strangely, they keep sauntering along looking for their mythical payload. But soon enough this creature attacks them, picking them off one by one and incorporating them into their mass. When they are down to only three crew of the original eight, they try to leave the planet, but soon join the other crashed ships. An alien race who live on this planet are shown worshipping another life-form, with some sort of Genesis plot and sacrifice rituals. The last survivor finds a remaining humanoid from another ship and his hallucinations seem to tie into what is going on, but then the narrative is bookended by the aliens and their rituals that didn’t make sense to me. 

The art was solid with a good variety of layouts, and it definitely aimed to have an Alien movie vibe. Saying strange creatures are Lovecraftian is an easy way to describe a certain style of art, and it leaned that way but wasn’t quite there. The crew members had a nice diversity to them, and the colors really popped. In fact, my pdf version of this graphic novel was the easiest to read online yet and the colors were vivid, which I so appreciated, as online reading is not my preferred method. 

Cullen Bunn is an established horror writer, with his Harrow County and Bone Parish being among my favorite graphic novel series. However, this stand-alone scifi story didn’t bring it home for me. While it wasn’t bad, it was cliched and somewhat bland. Not a single character stood out, and the ending confused me. However, Bunn is a favored author of mine, and I was glad to get an early look at this book through NetGalley.

-Nancy

8

Free Comic Book Day 2020

Free Comic Book Day had been scheduled for Saturday, May 2nd, and for very obvious reasons didn’t happen. I had brought FCBD to my previous library for several years and had big plans for my new library, but it had to be cancelled. With many of the issues already printed- what were the publishers and comic book stores to do? So, they decided to release the issues on a weekly basis from July 15th- September 9th. But I am resourceful and know that September 25th is National Comic Book Day, so my new library patrons will get comics after all on that day, albeit in a smaller outside the library (in a tent) event.

Here were some of my favorite issues this year, minus any DC comics that I had originally put in an order for since they pulled out of the event (boo, hiss!) since they no longer work with Diamond Comic Distributors.

Dark Ark: Instinct

This dark what-if tale was fascinating. Many of us have heard the biblical story of Noah and the ark saving people and animals for the future, but this tale speculates that a sorcerer Shrae builds an ark to save the unnatural animals. In this short story, a spider/human hybrid is about to give birth on the boat so her mate seeks nourishment for the forthcoming babies. But instinct takes over when she thinks she can not feed them and her mate discovers what she has done when he was briefly away and his actions doom them to extinction. The art was necessarily dark and sketchy with pink and red overtones. Cullen Bunn continues his excellent storytelling in this series.

X-Men/Dark Ages

The first story was about the X-Men with the second about the Avengers. I had no idea what was going on in the X-Men story although it had gorgeous art. Different universes, tarot cards, and ominous warnings were all I got out of it. The next story was centered around Tony Stark (whom I dislike) but at least I understood what was happening. When Iron Man’s powers are strictly based on technology, what happens when the world goes dark?

Spiderman/Venom

This issue contains two stories- the first about Spiderman and Black Cat and the second one being about Venom. In the first story, Peter and Felicia are battling it out with Vulture and working well as a team. The sexual tension is high and Peter questions what Felicity is up to, as she can’t always be trusted. In the next story, Eddie Brock is warning the Avengers team that the extremely dangerous villain Knull is readying to attack. His symbiote Venom is friendlier than I remember, and the two have to battle another villain, Virus. Both stories are good lead-ins to their respective future narratives.

Bloodshot, featuring X-O Manowar

The meh Bloodshot story was only a few pages long and didn’t even list the author and illustrator, although it did show Vin Diesel on the front cover as he portrayed him in a recent movie. I enjoyed the longer second story about X-O Manowar during his Viking childhood. It connected the mythology of his ancestors with his space-traveling future.

The Resistance

The evocative cover drew me in, and this story ended up being my favorite FCBD issue as it was a complete first issue of a new series, not just a taste like so many FCBD stories are. In fact, the narrative is eerily similar to what we are going through now, as a pandemic sweeps through the globe. In this tale, the pandemic is even more deadly, with a 95% fatality rate. But suddenly, the virus stops- as if a switch were turned off. The remaining world needs to regroup, with hints that there might be a mystical or otherworldly reason for what happened. The art is solid and was appropriately shadowy considering the storyline.

I also read Invincible by Robert Kirkman and The Boys by Garth Ennis, but they are simply reprints of their first issues to serve as lead-ins to new series on Prime Video that they wish to hype.

I appreciate that FCBD was not scrapped and adapted so readers could still pick up free issues. The comic book stores and publishers made the best of the situation with the unforeseen pandemic and DC pulling out of the event. It builds goodwill, drives people to comic book stores and thus increases sales at both the stores and for the publishers.

-Nancy

2

Bone Parish: Volumes Two & Three

Happy New Year!  Last January, I read the first volume of Bone Parish and loved it and I said in the comments: This series was like Briggs Land and Locke & Key got married and had a child. While early in the year, this could be one of my contenders for Best Reads of 2019. Considering it did make my Best Reads of 2019 list, how do the two concluding volumes match up?

To recap the premise of the first book:  “A new drug is sweeping through the streets of New Orleans—one made from the ashes of the dead. Wars are being fought over who will control the supply, while the demand only rises” and the Winters family of New Orleans has discovered how to manufacture the ashes of the dead into a powerful hallucinogenic drug that lets the person snorting the drug to experience everything the dead person lived through when they were alive.

Volume Two:

This book opens with the funeral of Wade, the youngest of the four Winter siblings, who was killed by a rival cartel who wants to take over the Winter’s ash business. You see the guilt, resentment, and anger that the surviving family members harbor, as they all cope in different ways. Unfortunately, this tragedy doesn’t seem to bring them together, instead, it drives them farther apart. Brigitte works on developing a new strain of ash in her laboratory to punish those that killed Wade and want to take over their business, while other cartel scientists try to create ash themselves with horrifying results. New villains are introduced while the Winters family struggles to stay ahead of the game.

I find the family dynamics fascinating- as Grace treats her daughter Brigitte with an icy aloofness as there seems to be no mother/daughter bond, Brae shows only disdain towards Leon whom he blames for Wade’s death while also being cruel to his sister and mother. Only Leon shows compassion for his family as he is the one that remembers that their dead father told them that family loyalty was all-important. As we work towards the conclusion, the reader can’t help but observe that creating this drug and building the drug empire is dooming their family.

The art and coloring remain as strong as ever. The visuals at the funeral tugged at your heartstrings, along with the monstrous consequences for the people who ingested the bogus ash from a rival cartel. The layouts of the panels guided you through the story, with effective coloring to show flashbacks.

Volume Three:

Alliances and betrayals between the Winter family and their rivals continue to evolve, with Brea unknowingly getting seduced by a bloodthirsty killer intent on getting revenge for her brother being killed earlier by the Winters. Leon begins to make some power moves, and he and his sister Brigitte experiment with how to tap into other people’s memories to look for clues. Leon barely survives the experience and his visions are suspect, although he views them as true. While I had considered him the most moral of the family, he then sacrifices someone during the gang wars.

We get a flashback to Brigitte introducing the idea of marketing the ash to her parents and I was shocked to realize it hadn’t been too far in the past. The Winters had lived in modest circumstances up until then, so the mansion and opulent surroundings that they lived in now were but recent acquisitions. But knowing that family members were already paying the price, was it worth it? She is literally playing God, trying to use her scientific knowledge with the mysticism she learned from a dead lover to cheat death. Things are spinning out of control with each family member operating separately and not uniting as their father had wanted them to. It all comes to a head, with a tragic conclusion, and fittingly, not everyone survives.

Jonas Scharf’s art was fantastic start to finish, with Leon’s visions being especially well-done. I have to say colorist Alex Guimarães’ work is the best I have ever seen. His vibrant pinks and purples to signify the hallucinogenic effect and the color palette that he uses throughout the narrative are second to none. I hope to see a lot more from this artistic team.

I was very impressed with the three-volume series, in fact, I wish it lasted longer, as I’m sad to be saying goodbye to the enigmatic Winters family. This necromantic horror story had it all- it was a riveting crime thriller and it had a thought-provoking moral debate about drug culture and the sanctity of life and for the body after death. A must-read for all graphic novel readers!

-Nancy

2

Harrow County: Volumes Seven & Eight

Harrow County’s southern gothic thriller has drawn to a close.  I reviewed all eight volumes within six weeks time as this supernatural series hooked me in and I devoured it. The narrative stayed strong the entire series with no let down in the middle and the conclusion was everything I wanted it to be.

Volume Seven: Dark Times A’Coming

Kammi is back…as if there was any doubt she wouldn’t be! In this penultimate volume, forces are gathering to destroy Emmy and all of Harrow County. Emmy endures two significant losses but has no time to mourn as Kammi is relentless.  Bernice fights right alongside her and the two woman do their best to keep Emmy’s “sister” at bay. We find out why Emmy and Kammi are so important to the witch coven, and who they represent. Just as you think Emmy has scored a hard-won victory at the end, she makes a soul crushing decision and we know her biggest battle is still ahead of her.

As we head into the last volume, I wanted to give a final shout-out to Tyler Crook’s art. His  haint creatures were creative and varied, and I thought of his work and H.P. Lovecraft’s as being similarly inspired. His work came to define Harrow County for me with it’s townspeople, rural landscapes and sinister woods. The only complaint I had is of his giving Emmy and others too much of a red cheeked look- it looked as if they had bad head colds for no discernible reason, although I soon stopped noticing it. The two page spread opening this book was creepy awesomeness, and I will never look at a close up of someone’s teeth without flashing back to this series.

Volume Eight: Done Come Back

Emmy’s decision at the end of the last volume, which she thought would make her stronger, did the opposite. She has corrupted herself and betrayed her goodness by letting evil in willingly. She and the original witch Hester battle for dominance as the lives of everyone in Harrow County hang in the balance. The mythology runs deep in the story with the minotaur haint, The Abandoned, playing a significant role. The ending seemed appropriate to the feel of the series, and it concluded on just the right note. The story was fully told and brought to a fine end, but a whisper of  the narrative could be picked up for further stories if author Cullen Bunn and Crook ever wanted to revisit the series.

The afterword by Bunn and Crook was a bittersweet way to wrap up the series and it truly signified the end, as no storybook of Crook’s art bookend this volume. Bunn told an excellent story and brought it to a close in a satisfying way. A big plus in this series was that Bunn created a lovely friendship between Emmy and Bernice. It is a sad reality that friendships between two females in books often are non–existent, or their interactions revolve around a boy. But in this series the two friends have an authentic and deep friendship and there is nary a romance to be found. I loved that! Thus, this story is so much more than an atmospheric supernatural tale- it touches on friendship, destiny, good vs evil and the choices we make and how they define us.

I am so glad I visited Harrow County. This was a wonderful series that didn’t drag or go on for too long. Bunn and Crook told a strong story from beginning to end, with an epic arc that should satisfy all readers. Go ahead and visit Harrow County yourself- you will be glad you did!

-Nancy

Check out my other Harrow County reviews: Volume One, Volumes Two-Four, Volumes Five-Six

7

Harrow County: Volumes Five & Six

I’m all in for the Harrow County series, so you have the pleasure of several Harrow County reviews from me in a row. With middle volumes five and six, this story is ramping up the action towards the (hopefully) thrilling conclusion!

Volume Five: Abandoned

Volume four’s back story is continued in volume five with an explanation of who the giant minotaur creature, The Abondoned, is. Some outside hunters come to town to kill this haint, and Emmy does her best to intervene to prevent an epic bloodbath. As I suspected earlier, Emmy’s “twin” Kammi is not completely gone, and her meddling puts everyone in danger.

One of the guest artists and the colorist from volume three is used again for this volume, in the first two chapters. Again, I wish Crook had consistently stayed as the artist for the entire series, but McNeil’s artwork grew on me and was evocative enough to not break the narrative flow. But I was glad to see that even when guest artists are used Crook still draws the covers and the other artists are consistent with the opening two page spreads to each chapter. I continue to adore how Crook incorporates the words Harrow County into each of those pictures.

Volume Six: Hedge Magic

Hedge magic is a term that can mean someone who can use a weaker more informally taught nature type of magic. This comes into play as Bernice who has been taught snake handling magic by Lovey, confronts Emmy. But both Bernice and Emmy have been played the fool by Odessa, one of the witches that seemingly is good but isn’t. When the witch family learn that their plot to turn the friends against each other failed, they turn to an even more sinister way of defeating Emmy…

I have failed to mention that at the end of all the volumes Crook adds a sketchbook of some of his work, showing how the volume develops from storyboards to final inks. This is a fascinating behind the scenes look at how graphic novels develop. Sometimes he shows failed cover art ideas, other times he shows how he develops his characters. Also showcased has been some deviant art by other artists and some little joke drawings.  I look forward to these sketchbooks in each volume to see how Crook and Bunn developed their narrative.

Next week, I will conclude the series with volumes seven and eight!

-Nancy

Check out my other Harrow County reviews: Volume One, Volumes Two-Four, Volumes Seven-Eight

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