When Image sent me a copy of Robert Kirkman and Todd McFarlane's new creation, Haunt, I was excited. My copy won't be here for another three or four weeks, at least, plus I love getting free comics. I also really wanted to like Haunt - unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot about it to like.POSSIBLE SPOILERS
Haunt begins by introducing us to Daniel Kilgore, a cold man who frequents prostitutes. But it is the revelation that Daniel is a clergyman which makes him really unlikeable. His brother, Kurt, is some sort of espionage agent whose relationship with his brother consists of forcing him to hear the details of his sins. When Kurt is killed during a mission, his ghost begins communicating with Daniel, begging him to protect his estranged sister-in-law (Kurt's widow). It is when the pair are attacked that Daniel discovers his brother's spirit has imbued him with superhuman abilities.
The concept is strong - superhuman powers granted by the Supernatural - but Haunt fails on several levels at once. There are two, basic ways to create comic books: traditionally written scripts and "The Marvel Way." In the latter, the writer and artist discuss the story to be told and certain key scenes and events are concreted. The artist draws the story, then the writer comes back in and writes the dialogue. Haunt reads exactly like a comic book done The Marvel Way by a creative team with communication issues. I'm not saying the communication issues were between McFarlane and Kirkman, just that there was a communication problem (the Internet could have broken, the creators may have had scheduling issues which kept them from getting together, whatever) because everything about Haunt seems thrown-together and rushed. Like Haunt's costume - which looks like Spawn got Bullseye's tights by mistake.
The pacing is off from the beginning and the story jumps around too much for the reader to figure out what's going on, who is involved, or why he should care. Kirkman eschews blurbs and thought balloons, preferring to use flashbacks to show you the details. A laudable attempt - this is a graphic medium, after all - but it does not serve Haunt well. There is too much story for a single issue and a few well-placed blurbs and thought balloons would have gone a long way and saved several pages. The first issue should have been double-sized, but the team also missed several opportunities to tell the story - including the entirety of the first two pages!
Another problem is the violence. Haunt is salaciously punctuated with scenes of total overkill - we even get to sit-in on a torture scene. The ultraviolence does nothing whatsoever to further the story - in fact, I found it a total turn-off. The violence is so ludicrously excessive that readers are either going to gag or giggle, but I sincerely doubt anyone's going to think it lends the title the "gritty realism" they were going for. There's a lot more to horror than gore, but you wouldn't know it from Haunt.
The artwork is disappointing. At turns both flat and excruciating, there is so much crosshatching and extraneous ink that you have to squint to find the people in every panel. The transformation scene is pretty spectacular, but 20 years later, Todd McFarlane is still drawing Spider-Man! Haunt's ectoplasm is Spidey's webbing and with all the unnecessary crosshatching and toothbrush-spattering for which the core Image artists are known, by the fourth issue, you're not even going to be able to see the guy once he "Haunts-out!" By Haunt #10, the title character is going to be represented by nothing more than a squiggly line. Every time there's a scuffle, it's going to look like he's fighting Andy Capp!
There's an interesting story in Haunt, but I have a feeling we're going to be no closer to it by issue three than we are in issue one. Obscuring everything doesn't heighten tension. If nobody cares about the characters, they aren't going to care what happens to them, and we can't care about the characters in Haunt because we don't know enough about them - nor what's going on to/with/around them! Far from a catch-22 of the story or genre, it's a failing of the writer's; Kirkman is really bad about this, as evidenced by Walking Dead.
I have a subscription to Haunt and I'll be receiving the first three issues for certain, so I'll let you know how things progress, but if the first issue is any indication, I'll only be receiving the first three. I subscribed to Walking Dead for nearly two years, waiting for something to happen - it never did. I'm not making the same mistake with Haunt.
© C Harris Lynn, 2009
1 comment:
I wanted to point-out that I did not take the fact that the main character is a vice-laden priest into account for this review. That is to say, that aspect of the comic book and even his character did not offend me; the only thing I found objectionable about that is how trite it is.
Still, I don't like the character as a sinning priest specifically because it makes him a liar - it has nothing to do with my religious convictions nor anything like that. To my mind, a priest who sometimes bangs a hooker, smokes and drinks regularly, and just generally lives life is not at all a bad thing; this guy strikes me more as a televangelist. And there is nothing good about televangelists.
IMO, the character's behavior did not make him "human," it made him a weak-willed liar who exploits people's faith for profit. But because I felt the book was so poorly executed, the fault may lie with the creators. It could be that Kirkman meant for the priest to be a "regular joe" who just so happens to be a priest, and the sloppy execution is to blame for making him come across as a lousy POS.
Whatever the case may be, I found the entire book distasteful. It had the emotional depth of a video game - a video game where you get to play a priest who smokes, drinks, gambles, kills, and bangs hookers on a regular basis.
Post a Comment