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Post by killercrab on Apr 26, 2012 3:07:39 GMT
Slither and Squelch
Now that's a great name for a horror comic!
KC
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Post by dem bones on Apr 26, 2012 7:34:28 GMT
Slither and SquelchNow that's a great name for a horror comic! KC would you believe, i was thinking exactly the same thing even as i typed it Now if we could only sign up Grimly Feendish, Creepy Comix, Bewitched Belinda, Webster, the Duke's Spook, Shake, Biddy's Beastly Bloomers, Hire A Horror, Creepy Car and Scream Inn, we'd be in business.
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Post by killercrab on Apr 27, 2012 3:46:47 GMT
If only. ;D
KC
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Post by Michael Connolly on Apr 27, 2012 10:28:35 GMT
Here's Faceache from Buster meeting a real ghost. Attachments:
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Post by bluetomb on Feb 11, 2015 13:19:57 GMT
Second in my Hamlyn quest...
John Halkin's second foray into nasty nature, Slime is on most levels a triumph over the already none too shabby Slither. In a neat prologue, a shoal of jellyfish feast on the cadaverous crew of a sunken ship, this gives them a taste for humans and a coordinating intelligence that sets them toward wreaking mayhem in English waters. I'm not sure that jellyfish actually work this way, but it lends a certain sense of "this could happen anywhere, anytime to what follows". Then we get to proper business, with one poor young Pete taking an illicit sail only to get knocked overboard by an unsecured boom and wind up first victim. Next we meet Tim Ewing, increasingly reluctant star of hit TV show The Chronicles of Gulliver. He goes from reluctant to downright disgruntled when winded by an over eager extra, but this soon pales in comparison to the washed up faceless corpse of poor Pete. From then on, its jellyfish adventures almost all the way...
This is a good fast paced one. It doesn't take long after the first discovery of a jellyfish menace for things to get tense again, not long after that before the next lethal episode, and by less than a hundred pages in of 250 the book has settled into a regular rhythm of jellyfish kills, jellyfish tension and discussing what to do about the jellyfish tension. The odd sexy interlude, or TV stuff but mostly this is all about the jellyfish. Eerily glowing, slime trailing, orifice probing, skin melting/tearing, these are nasty beasties. As with Slither this isn't that gory, but it is intense, painful and well drawn, and Halkin wrings a bit of real sadness from a fair few of the deaths with his keenness for lives or otherwise disappointments flashing before eyes. The sexy times are mostly coyly amusing, the TV stuff has a ring of truth from Halkin’s background. It’s fun to try and figure out personal ties/gripes, if irrelevant.
I wasn't that convinced by the token efforts to bring a little more complexity to the women of the piece, ultimately just biologist Jocelyn comes off well, with the others ultimately coming down to just wanting the same thing. I know this is roughly what I should expect from books about rampaging jellyfish or the like, but I dunno, I feel like it couldn't be that hard to just do a bit better. Maybe its just me? Also on the minus side is an ending, which having painted itself into a corner is inevitably more of a whimper than a bang. Final chapters are mostly very effective but it doesn't quite pull off a good climax. The one area in which it definitely isn't as good as Slither in fact.
But these are fairly minor quibbles compared with the fun of the whole. I got through most of this in two days between trains and pubs, its perfect travelling or idling stuff. While I can certainly imagine weirder and gorier treatments of the subject, if British pulp horror on killer jellyfish seems like your thing this is essential.
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Post by erebus on Feb 12, 2015 12:15:09 GMT
That is a superb summary of the book Bluetomb. So much in fact you've made me want to read the darn thing again.
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Post by jamesdoig on Apr 17, 2023 8:26:21 GMT
Couple of nice Slime covers:
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