Completely Doomed

It’s not easy to produce a horror comic, one that truly grips you and makes you afraid of going to the bathroom alone at night. Partly because of the limits of the medium itself, good horror is about what you do not see and comics rely on an equal impact of visuals and writing to the reader’s experience. With IDW’s anthology Completely Doomed, you have the best of both worlds ”“ the stories are adapted from classic Twentieth Century horror writers like Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson and F Paul Wilson and the black-and-white illustrations are by experimental, quirky artists like Ashley Wood and Ted McKeever and old-timers like Mike Hoffman and Eduardo Baretto. This follows a tradition laid down by horror comic magazines of the seventies, Eerie and Creepy, which had legendary artists of that era embellishing classic horror tales.

The modern artists stamp their individual styles throughout the stories. Ashley Wood, in particular, brings a lyrical quality to his collaborations ”“ Matheson’s Blood Son and David Schow’s Bagged are vampire stories for the new generation and Wood’s brush-work shines in both. Nat Jones is another revelation ”“ an artist primarily known for his work on Spawn, a title accentuated by glossy computer colours, Jones’s chiaroscuro palette makes Matheson’s Children of Noah look moody and muddy, just the kind of feeling a story of this caliber is supposed to evoke. The only disappointment is Alex Sanchez, who tries too hard to imitate the seventies feel in The Warm Farewell and fails miserably. The remaining artists are passable, some finding it hard to emerge from their superhero hang-over, and others too bland to be termed “horror” artists.

IDW claims to be the torchbearer for horror comics in the Twenty-first Century, and it has proved itself with steady franchises like 30 Days of Night. Completely Doomed is a noble experiment, but its merits are outweighed by its inconsistency and the disparity in storytelling styles. After all, when you are adapting stories that are hallmarks of the genre, a certain level of quality is guaranteed, and it’s hard to mess up.