COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode I

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

ARMY OF DARKNESS VS HACK/ SLASH #5

So welcome to my first review for the fine folks at G-Mart. Now, full disclosure, me and the writer of this particular comic (Tim Seeley) and the G-mart establishment go WAY back. Once upon a time I used to produce theater in Chicago. Tim saw a stage musical version of Army of Darkness that I produced and after the show, over beers, introduced me to Hack/ Slash. This was many years ago, before he was a hotshot superstar. I proceeded to put the first two H/S comics on stage. Several current and former G-Mart employees took part in both shows and G-mart itself promoted and sponsored some related events. Was it pure coincidence I chose this book off my pile to accompany me to the commode tonight? Or was there something more sinister at work?

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying this series pretty well. Tim has a really good ear for Ash’s dialogue and in this issue they finally gets around to tying the Necronomicon to Akakios and The Black lamp Society. Basically Ash & Cassie jump into a Necronomicon created vortex and are shunted back to Ancient Greece. Yes, Greece. (Stick around, dear reader and you'll learn about the irony of all this for me) Ash and Cassie are sold into slavery but luckily are sold to an older woman with a penchant for the freaky deaky. In order to draw out the bad guys, Ash convinces his owner to throw a huge Bacchanalia (aka a great big freaky sex party). This line of Ash’s sums it up nicely: “What? You think a guy who built a fully functioning metal hand in Medieval England couldn’t concoct sex toy guns in Ancient Greece? Come on, gimme some credit.”

So the sex toy gun thing happens. Ash and Cassie and the freaky freaks defeat the deadite horde. Cassie is beating Young Akakios to death when Ash stops her with the usual time-space continuum argument of ‘if you kill him now, all this other important stuff won’t happen’. Akakios runs away and Cassie clocks Ash so she can run off and…DUN DUN DUN…use the Necromicon to bring her dead partner Vlad back to life! She’s interrupted by some Black Lamp woman and…to be continued.

Seeley’s got a strong story going here and, as I said above, has weaved the two mythologies together extremely well. If you’re a fan of either of these properties, or just a fan of elaborately drawn group-and-more sex scenes that challenge the convention of “draped hair and clothing barely covering the naughty bits”, you shouldn’t miss this issue (or the whole series for that matter).