Image Firsts: Hack/Slash and Dead@17 - Part 2

Earlier this week our friend and regular correspondent Simon Breeze posted the first part of his two-part look at a couple of 'firsts' from Image Comics. Having explored the first issue of Hack/Slash in some detail Simon now turns his attentions to another title that he describes as 'similar yet very different indeed': Dead@17.

Dead@17 - reviewed by Simon Breeze
Written by Josh Howard with art by Josh Howard
Published by Image Comics

Dead@17 follows the story of Nara Kilday, who, as the books title hints at, is killed (within this first issue) at the age of just 17 only to then, as the title does not elude too, mysteriously return to life at the end of the issue as an axe-swinging zombie killer!

The story starts by following Nara as she returns home after a night out with her friend Hazy Foss. It is a very wordy first page, but I mean that only as a comparison to the following five pages or so where hardly a word is spoken. As I say, I'm not pointing this out as a negative, in fact quite the opposite, the first five or six pages of this comic are brilliantly paced and tell the story of Nara Kilday’s demise fantastically - they are an excellent example of the rest of this comics well-paced story telling.

From this point onwards, the story turns its attentions to Hazy Foss and Elijah (another friend of the departed Nara) and how between them they are coming to terms with the loss of their dear friend.

Through Hazy and Elijah, we discover that Nara was plagued with bizarre and violent dreams where she would act out the nightmares she had experienced. In one such nightmare, she even attacked Elijah to wake later with no recollection of the event ... or did she?

We also discover that the police are taking quite an interest in her death and have uncovered a diary that Nara kept. The diary starts out, as a normal teenage girl’s diary might however, around 16 years of age through the pages of the diary, Nara starts explaining how she is hearing voices and seeing strange things such as demons, visions of hell and she makes references to the occult. All very mysterious indeed. The pages of the diary are also full of strange symbols, random words, and disturbing phrases. As the police officer puts it, ‘... your friend was a seriously disturbed young lady.’

Hazy is more than confused about this turn of events and returns to her home and her mother where after a falling out, which seems quite a common event between her and her mother, she calls her friend Elijah to discuss her discoveries of their mutual friend, Nara. Before Elijah can put in an appearance, zombies randomly appear and break down Hazy’s front door and start to attack her in her home. Just as Hazy is about to become zombie fodder, an axe swinging, schoolgirl uniform clad Nara appears and hacks the zombies to bits. To be continued ...

This comic sounds a bit bonkers, mainly because it is! The good thing about its bonkersness (if that is a word?! [Zaius: I don't think it is Simon!]) is that it is an enjoyable and intriguing bonkers that kept me hooked from the very first page. Throughout the story you are introduced to several characters and situations, all adding to the curiosity of what is going on, because even when you finish this first issue you still don’t really know for sure, you have an idea, but nothing you would put good money on.

That is the key to this comic’s story, it feels like a murder mystery, and teen horror all rolled into one and that is why I enjoyed it so much. In addition, I cannot help but get a ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ vibe about Dead@17, I think it is the suggestion of a teenage girl fighting demons and the occult. This is not a bad thing as Buffy was an inspired and original idea, and I cannot help but get the impression that Dead@17 is going to serve the genre of teenage demon killing girl well.

All-in-all a really solid comic and I have no hesitation in giving it a zombie splatting four out of five and I will be picking up a few more issues.


Thank you to Simon for this weeks contributions - enjoyable, considered and thought provoking as always. On a personal note I've also recently read both of these first issues from Image Comics and likewise found them enjoyable: two very well written stories accompanied by some fantastic art - I particularly appreciated the 'quirky' art style through Dead@17 I must say.

Image Firsts: Hack/Slash and Dead@17 - Part 1

My sincere thanks to our regular correspondent and friend of Escape from Tomorrow Simon Breeze for another insightful comic book review - or in this case two comic book reviews.

Remember you can read more from Simon over on his blog where, of course, you can also enjoy looking over his wonderful art.

Hack/Slash and Dead@17 - reviewed by Simon Breeze

The genius trend of the ‘One-for-One-Dollar’ comic books continues, and long may it do so I say as I genuinely believe that it is bringing new readers to comics that they may otherwise have given a miss. Readers like me in fact, who has happily invested a Dollar or two here and there, a Dollar that I would not normally have spent, and then ended up getting the collected editions of some of these fantastic reads or taking them on as part of my monthly pull list.

The most recent publications from the One-for-One Dollar line that I have dabbled in are from Image Comics, namely Hack/Slash and Dead@17. Both comics fall onto a similar playing field as far as I'm concerned - horror with a female teen protagonist - yet, to their individual credit, are very different reads indeed.

Today I'll talk about Hack/Slash and later in the week Dead@17 ...

Hack/Slash
Written by Tim Seeley with art by Stefand Caselli and Emily Stone
Published by Image Comics

At first, I must admit, I had almost decided that Hack/Slash wasn't for me before I had even picked up a copy. It is a long story, here is the short version:

The covers that I've seen have been, for me at least, somewhat misleading, and at a quick glance I assumed that the comic was little more than a shallow attempt to have an attractive girl as skimpily dressed as possible covered in blood and gore - I genuinely thought that was all the comic had to offer me - how wrong could I have been?! Now for some people this approach would all be great stuff, but for me, not a chance. I like my horror scary and clever, and much to my joy, Hack/Slash has this in buckets!

The comic follows Cassie Hack, who strikes back at the monsters and murderous bad guys known as ‘Slashers’ with the help of a gentle giant known as Vlad, who is mostly always seen within the comic wearing a gas mask to cover his disfigured features. This first issue treats us to two stories told as one with a series of flashbacks that gives us the story of how Cassie Hack’s troubled childhood led her to the interesting life the comic follows, cut throughout the second story where we are shown Cassie and Vlad’s most recent case - 'Gross Anatomy'.

The flashbacks brilliantly tell Cassie Hack’s bizarre childhood and follow that urban myth of the school cook killing, cooking and serving all of the bad children at the school as meals to the good children. In this case, the cook is Cassie’s mum, the bad children are the ones that are picking on her daughter, and it is Cassie herself that brings her mum to justice when she discovers just what is going into those school ‘lunch specials.’ The flashbacks also allow the opportunity to tell the brief story of how Cassie and Vlad met and became the dynamic monster hunting duo that they are today.

In the main story, Cassie has used herself as bait to catch the latest Slasher. The trap appears to have gone wrong and Cassie has the unfortunate turn of events of being captured and severely tortured at the hands of the Slasher, losing more than one of her toes in the process ... and almost her life. The story ends with Vlad finding the captive heroine and saving her and the day by killing the bad guy. But at what cost?

My last comment there is the thing that I loved about this comic - ‘But at what cost?’. Cassie is as hard as nails and watching her being painfully tortured and mutilated panel after panel is gut wrenching, yet cut with the reason as to why she is as hardened as she is and her motives, you cannot help but buy into her as a character and the situation she has found herself in. She has no superpowers, those toes are not growing back, and the brutal beating she receives is not going to heal overnight. It would be easy in a comic to ignore these things, sweep them under the carpet with some thin explanation, and move on. Hack/Slash embraces these things and the consequences that follow them, which is what makes this comic so good. The last few panels when Cassie is dressing her wounds reminded me of a great moment in the film Casino Royal, where James Bond is cradling a broken Eva Green in his arms as she sobs in the shower after the brutal events just prior. This scene gave the film grounding in the real world for me, it made the unbelievable violence and events that preceded it more believable, and it gave me a strong emotional tie to the characters. This is exactly the same feeling I had as I watched Vlad cradle the sobbing Cassie in the bathroom at the end of this first story.

Hack/Slash is probably not for everyone, it is brutal and violent but it has a fun side too, although I would recommend this comic to anyone who reads with that warning. The comic is not about the situations that Cassie Hack finds herself in; it is about the character of Cassie Hack and how she is dealing with them. Now that might sound a little confusing, so I will simply say, if you can buy into the character of Cassie, you will buy into this comic, and Cassie is a very likeable and convincing ‘real’ person, which is the strength behind this comic.

I have read a lot of new titles (well, new to me) over the past year and only one or two have gone onto my ‘must own’ list. Hack/Slash is one of those titles. I give it a blood splattering five out of five!

In the second of this two-part feature I'll be taking a look at another of Image's titles, Dead@17.


As I say, thanks to Simon for another fantastic review - a timely one as well as only last week Image released the Hack/Slash: My First Maniac trade paperback for a bargain $9.99.

Hack/Slash: My First Maniac trade paperback
story by Tim Seeley, art by Dan Leister, cover by Jenny Frison
112 Pages, full colour, $9.99, S&N LTD ED Hardcover $29.99

HACK/SLASH: MY FIRST MANIAC, the sellout Image Comics debut miniseries is collected! This critically acclaimed hit explores Cassie Hack's first case. 16-year-old Cassie has just been forced to kill her mother, the undead murderer known as the Lunch Lady! Now faced with overwhelming guilt, she must decide if she can make a life with her foster parents and at her new school or if she should use her new-found slasher killing skills to save other screaming teenagers! But does the apple fall far from the tree?

Includes never-before-seen sketches and an introduction by Allison Scagliotti, star of SyFy's WAREHOUSE 13.

More details can, of course, be found at Image Comics.

Image Firsts - Wave One

Continuing my liking for $1 comic books ... my fortnighly comic book delivery arrived yesterday and in amongst the regular monthly titles - and an action figure! - were a number of 'Image Firsts' - reprinted first issues of a number of Image titles.

I believe these titles were more recently published back in the Spring of this year as the 'first wave' of Image Firsts so maybe my shop relisted them to publicise 'Image Firsts - Wave Two' which kicks off next month featuring reprinted first issues of Elephantmen, Madman, Godland, Hack/Slash and Dead@17.

Prior to picking up these issues I'd not read any of these titles before ...

IMAGE FIRSTS: PROOF #1
story ALEX GRECIAN
art & cover RILEY ROSSMO

A really enjoyable read - at times it felt a little bit like one of the earlier X-Files episodes where we were getting to know the central characters: only in this case instead of Mulder and Scully we were introduced to Agent Ginger Brown and her unconventional partner ... Bigfoot.

Great dialogue, really pleasing art - sold! I'll definitely be looking to pick up the first trade of this series which, I'm helpfully told at the back of the book, is Proof - Book 1: Goatsucker.







IMAGE FIRSTS: GIRLS #1
story JOSHUA LUNA
art & cover JONATHAN LUNA

Focusing on Ethan, a young man in a small town who just doesn't seem to connect with many - any? - of the women in his town I found myself in two minds at the end of the book: I'd enjoyed the read, the art was quite simple but worked well and I liked it, I just didn't get that 'I must pick up the trade' feeling.

Ironically, this might just be a book that I'd enjoy more as a trade rather than in single issues ... but I obviously won't know unless I pick up the first volume.


IMAGE FIRSTS: THE WALKING DEAD #1
story ROBERT KIRKMAN
art & cover TONY MOORE

I've heard so many people speaking in glowing terms about this title that the first trade - Volume 1: Days Gone Bye - has been on my wish list, along with a thousand other titles, for a while so this Image First came along just at the right time for me.

Needless to say - but I'm going to say it! - I loved it. I think I was expecting a visually dark book and maybe that was one of the things that was previously stopping me picking the trade up - but that wasn't the case: without doubt the black and white illustrations were a help in this regard and added to, rather than took away, from the 'feel' of the book.

Great writing, great art - I've now ordered the first trade!