“Love Stories”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artists: Emily Stone
Publisher: Devil’s Due Publishing
As an active member of a church, I am unhappy with this issue of Hack/Slash. As a comic book fan I’m giddy and gushing over it. Both of those statements will likely be taken as positive from fans of the series.
Emily Stone is one of the better artists to draw Cassie and Vlad, which says a lot since Hack/Slash has not had a bad artist associated with it—all of them have been impressive. I can’t find anything to criticize and every page is as good as the next. Maybe it’s because the writer is also an artist, but the pages are laid out so that even though there is only one page with fewer then four panels on it, there is still enough space made for a big eye catching panel on more then half the pages. Though there was not much to talk about in regards to the aesthetics of the villain—Ms. America Emily Cristy—the final panel of the book will leave a lasting impression.
What interests me most is the direction the title is going in plot-wise. It started out as one-shots, then had a three issue mini-series, and all but a couple times kept each story an independent arc. In this issue there are 2 editors’ notes suggesting the reader read a different issue to understand what is going on in this one, plus 3 main characters who originated in 3 different arcs and references to most of the other previous stories.
So it’s deep in continuity.
The C story in this issue is backtracking to explain a relationship that popped up in the first issue of the on-going series. After meeting in Hack/Slash vs. Chucky, two of the former victims have started sleeping together and are acting as Oracle or ‘base command’ for Vlad and Cassie, who are out in the field. This story flashes back to them first hooking up after Hack/Slash vs. Chucky.
Cassie is nurturing Vlad in the A story of this issue. He is having health problems and she starts pawning keepsakes to get them a hotel room on a rainy night. Eventually she hocks her dead mother’s wedding ring to get the money - FYI kids, you’ll need documented proof of ownership to sell your mother’s wedding ring to a pawnshop. It’s the most simple of the three stories going on but it is what I like most because it shows an emotional and heartfelt side that the horror genre rarely has and it’s not cliché or elaborate—just a few simple scenes to get across the message.
Ms. America is the only slasher in this issue and she appears in the B story. A villain from “First Cut” appears in the C story, but he isn’t a slasher - just some douche. The B story centers around a researcher who had a schoolboy crush on then-famous Ms. America. The opening has a really cute scene where the researcher as a young boy fakes being sick to stay home alone and gets into his dad’s porn mags. That’s where he sees naked pictures of Ms. America. As an adult he is doing studies on her after she has been destroyed in two meetings with Cassie and Vlad. His loss of control in the face of fantasies leads to Ms. America being freed in stellar fashion that I would recommend seeing but it’s something that only people with a screw loose, such as myself, will get a kick out of.
What did you think of this book?
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