This columns marks, I hope a return to some level of regular reviews. I was not in a funk, so to speak, I was in pain. My joints are failing due to arthritis and gout. My sleep entered a state of serious deprivation, and I deal with a syndrome associated with Crohn’s disease. And less painful but somewhat frustratingly I had reached a point where I could not read a comic without going into reviewer mode and that frustrated me too. My readers here are bright people, and going through the motions would never be acceptable. So I had to retreat. Also I have moved creatively into some areas of work that are new to me, and some that I had never even considered let alone encountered prior. All these combined to keep me from reentering the reviewing world. But now I am back, mostly, and I plan to recover the last two months of relative silence in the regards to reviews.
THE NIGHTMARIST
By: Duncan Rouleau From: Active Images Price: $14.99
I interviewed Duncan Rouleau a while back and enjoyed his replies to my questions, but you really never know until you read the work what you will think. I had thoughts of a couple different possible directions in which this could lead, the VICTORIAN, from Penny Farthing which while not dream oriented clearly moody and dark with a top hatted hero. SANDMAN, with the preponderance of stories falling into dream oriented. Now there is also Rick Veitch’s RareBit works where he sequentially adapts and considers thoroughly the possible interpretations found within. Finally there is a wide variety of comic books that draw from the Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos Dreamlands, the Little Nemo world, and far more. We are tortured by our lack of sleep as a culture, but the NIGHTMARIST is about the time devoted to actual sleep. Does it help to know it is all fiction? Do your dreams or nightmares linger? Where the Nightmarist is concerned they will. Beth Sorrenson is a depressed and angry young girl with dreams and nightmares. The problems of such are initially somewhat suspect, but they begin to affect her world, her reality. The therapist her family and friends and all are at a loss to help her, most themselves also disturbed. The Nightmarist responds to her increasingly troubling dreams as a servant for the Ministry of Dreams. He is not so much a hero, not so much a villain as a character who deals with the problems, and as such he is an appealing sort. You might convince your self that dreams are a passing thing, with no substance, but here and elsewhere dreams are real, and they are investigated so that the darkness found within them can be defeated. Due to having interviewed Rouleau I confess to have had some positive bias going into the reading of this. But given that, I have to say that this was a title that would easily spook horror readers, intrigue mystery lovers and generally please fans of all other genres. The art is excellent. The writing is at least good, and whatever difficulties there were in the story (while only rarely, it seemed occasionally didactic and philosophical in a fashion as to distract), were forgiven when the quite good overall larger picture came into view. Seek this book out.
HECTOR PLASM: DE MORTUIS
Writers: Benito Cereno & Nate Bellegarde Artist/Letters: Nate Bellegarde Price: $5.99 US/$6.85 CAN
Hector Plasm was gifted (or cursed depending upon your outlook) since his earliest memory with being able to see undead and evil supernatural beings. This ability led most people to believe that upon becoming an adult he’d become a warrior, one with a special mission, to protect human kind from the worst of the beings from the other side. His talents would draw him in to a mystery, but he faced the other world with a desire to know above all, and to<
