Official solicit:

HEATHENTOWN OGN
story CORINNA SARA BECHKO, art and cover GABRIEL HARDMAN

When Anna travels deep within the Florida Everglades to attend her lover’s funeral, she finds herself in an eerie small town where death is but a horrible beginning! In an attempt to discover the truth, she digs up her lover’s coffin, starting a chain reaction which brings an ancient malevolence into the town bent on her destruction!

IMAGE COMICS
JANUARY 2009
MSRP 9.99USD

Hey, we finally have new content. New content that’s not just us complaining about C-list celebrities (seriously, does anyone really need to talk to Paula Abdul about anything?) or Erech’s fantastic toy reviews (also serious, we’ve yet to get a single complaint about them). Yes, Murders How? Dot Com is going to not just make veiled references to nerd books, we’re going to start telling you which ones you should buy too.

Well, maybe not quite that much. There’s lots of comics you should be buying, and we don’t have nary the time nor the inclination to tell you about the merits and, more importantly (it is the internet after all), the demerits of everything that gets released (and even if we did, most of the time would be spent shouting about the ending of Planetary, which wouldn’t ultimately be helpful to any of us).

So sit back as Stephan & Erech take a break from Late Night Thing and dissect the latest comic they read and tell you why you should or shouldn’t go buy a copy of it too! (psst - Spoiler alert!)

ERECH: To get this out of the way right from the start, this is more or less a zombie horror comic, which is right in Stephan & I’s wheelhouse. If you’re not into that sorta stuff, you may just want to stop reading now and save yourself 15 minutes, yeah?

So the story starts with our lead, Anna Romano, caught by police mucking around in a fresh grave in some cemetery in a small Florida town. If we’re given the name of the town, it’s later in the story and I forget now. She’s taken into custody and immediately handed over to a public defender who begins questioning her like he’s building a psych case - which all felt really stunted.

STEPHAN: The motivation in that scene was off too. Her reticence to talk to the police made no sense. She was presumably shocked, but that didn’t really come across properly at all.

ERECH: No it didn’t, why wouldn’t she say immediately “oh hey cops, I just saw some crazy monsters blah blah” or whatever, because at this point in the book she’s already several pages ahead of us. Anyways, the lawyer gets more out of her, we find out she was some sort of Peace Corp or Grad Student type, studying tribes in Chad - which is where my first groan came from. As Anna is retelling her tale to the lawyer, and says Chad - he interjects with “Chad, that’s in South America?” and she replies back “Africa”. UGH. I dunno why, but that just really drove me nuts, and I think jaded my thoughts on the writing from there on out. It’s just such a smug way to establish your lead, so snotty and clumsy, and how it tried to paint the “backwoods lawyer” as a dummy while building up Anna. It didn’t work for me at all though, and from that point on I had a harder and harder time relating to or even liking the lead at all.

STEPHAN: The Chad stuff ended up just being a red herring too. Nothing that followed really had anything to do with that.

ERECH: No. Just to establish how tough she was? It felt very “Lost” to me. OH I ON ISLAND FOR 3 WEEKS, LOOK HOW BADASS I AM NOW!

STEPHAN: Yes. I was thinking of Lost too. Suddenly I’m an expert tracker/hand-to-hand combat expert, now that I’ve had to live off provisions from the plane for the last month. Or maybe even a Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds. The ‘oh, he’s the hero, that’s why hero stuff keeps happening.’ without ever actively engaging in any heroic acts at all, Tom Cruise beats up a paranoid Tim Robbins. Then people in that basket watch the thing eat some other people until Tom Cruise is involved and then they start helping him. In this, the hero gets strung up, but the other lady gets eviscerated. Awesome.

ERECH: I just hate that sort of weak writers rationale - I AM FROM THIS PLACE WHICH HAS A STIGMA OF BEING HARD, THUS MEANS I AM TOO FROM LIVING THERE. It’s a trick used in lots of bad movies, the black guy from the hood in the horror flick is always way tougher than Jason (for a second at least) etc. Zombie Pirates would mess you up no matter where you were from, right?

STEPHAN: People from Chad would be in more trouble because they’re a lot more superstitious too. I’ve seen movies before.

ERECH: I hated how dumb everyone was around Anna too, I felt very clearly that the writer was taking a higher vantage point from the main characters perspective - I couldn’t dissuade myself from the idea that the writer herself was something of a snob. Like, “this is what I would do in a zombie crisis” - I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment to make or even suggest now, but I just remember very vividly being taken out of the story several times by how smug Anna came across - when clearly she’s not faring all that well in the story itself.

STEPHAN: I can see that. Well, she fares just fine. Again she’s the hero. Ah, that’s unfair though. I’m willing to bet there just weren’t enough pages to really get into that stuff. If this was five issues of 22 pages each, I think maybe that would have solved the problems?

ERECH: Maybe. Possibly. Back to the story - so Anna’s in Chad, and meets this other Grad Student - Kit Durrel - who we’re told is “a good friend”. Then suddenly, we’re in the middle of some tribal warfare, people are being slaughtered with machetes and then just like that, half a page later, Kit’s dead. Anna then takes Kit’s body back to the States, and there’s a little drama about that, and then we cut to Anna meeting Kit’s Mother in Florida as she returns her daughter’s belongings before the funeral. It’s a strange scene with the Mother, and I wouldn’t understand why until later either. Of course, the official blurb for the book gives away the relationship of Anna & Kit as being lovers, but the story itself seemed to especially shy away from that, almost afraid to tell us they were. It’s not until halfway through the book where it’s really revealed, and even then…

STEPHAN: Yeah, it seems like it’s supposed to be a big deal, but who cares? Are comic fans so repressed that this is still something? I don’t understand otherwise. I don’t consider myself progressive, in fact, the first draft of this review was just a series of jokes about how black people can’t swim (see, because the story starts in Chad, which seems like it might be a country in South America Africa). By the way, was there supposed to be some sexual tension between the heroine and the lawyer or something, I missed? If that had been developed, then I guess I could see the nature of Kit & Anna’s relationship being a big reveal.

ERECH: Right. So the story progresses more, Anna is stuck in Florida after the funeral, by choice or by circumstance (I was never really sure), and we get more snobbery. “Living in Africa you get used to seeing people with all sorts of problems and disabilities. But I’ve never seen anything like your town after dark”. Although what seemed like snobbery was probably actually Anna poorly reacting to having just run into a bunch of zombies (or whatever they are), which she is already aware of at this point in the story, so again, the tone in which she retells the story to the lawyer has Anna coming across as a major, vacuous snob. Why the interjection about Chad making her so tough again, when Anna is fairly aware of the fact something crazy is going on here now? Why doesn’t she say to the lawyer “Man, you got a whole lotta zombies up in this mess!” instead?

STEPHAN: I’m just going to pretend all of the police station stuff never happened, it’s better that way. When they get to do a movie (and they should because I would absolutely see it), hopefully there’s a lot less of that and lot more time devoted to the last third of the story. That was when things got good, but it just seemed rushed. Good tone, but too rushed.

ERECH: Fair enough. Moving the story along, we then get a bunch of stuff happening as Anna sees Kit in a cemetery, ALIVE, and then chases her into the swamp. Bad idea.
Anna gets chased by some wild pigs, and then enters some spooky shack in the woods and then it goes even more crazy from there. In the shack, Anna is attacked by some decrepit old man, who stops short of killing her just as suddenly when he sees a bracelet made from elephant hair Anna is wearing (that we find out later was a gift from Kit during their time in Africa). So we’re in the thick of it, finally caught up to present - Anna’s grave is empty, Anna is arrested and brought to the station, and just as she finishes up telling the lawyer what happened - a big, crazy zombie conquistador pirate starts wrecking the police station zombie monster style! Body parts flying, guns blazing - I’m like YES, finally something is happening!

STEPHAN: Even that felt a little bizarre though, I am the guy who should be insane for a zombie-pirate-elephant comic, but I mean they even did all the violence “off screen”, an odd choice given the medium. I get that most horror comics are just gore with no story, and separating yourself from that is admirable, but I have every confidence that the creative team could have integrated the gore and the story just fine. Again, the only real failing (and calling it a failing seems a little too harsh) is the book is too short.

ERECH: Yeah, and that’s the problem. The pacing too so far had been weird all over, I think Neil Gaiman has talked about this kind of writing. I don’t remember what he called it, but how you have to send your hero on a quest to establish them, send them off to go find a key and the magic hat and deal with all the perils on the way, it’s like Legend of Zelda storytelling. Your character has to earn all this HP before we can finally get to the good stuff. We start Heathentown at a point where the lead character already has pivotal plot information, but we have to follow along to the writers clumsy pace to get it spilled to us. The whole Police scene felt a lot like the scene in Terminator 1 to me too, whether it was meant to or not, but I was just waiting for the bad guy(s) to show up the whole time and eff stuff up - which of course (t)he(y) did.

STEPHAN: Yeah, and if you’re going to reference the Terminator series, you go with T2. That’s obviously the high water mark.

ERECH: So from here on out, the story just gets a little convoluted for me, and I’m still not sure of what to make of it even having read the book 2-3 times before writing this. I’m no dummy, but high concept horror mythology loses me sometimes - or maybe I’m just trying too hard to unravel the thing? What I gathered is this; under the swamps of Florida lives this religious group of undead/zombie people from throughout the centuries, toiling away at something, who worship animals? We’ve got Wooly Mammoths and Cats and Rats and Alligators and all kind of stuff, it’s vaguely like that scene in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, where Short Round is in those underground caverns will all the villager children, forced to work. Nobody really seems to be doing anything but milling about and carrying stuff, and nothing really seems to be getting done either. (This is also the first time we really get an actual clue about Anna and Kit’s relationship, as they exchange a kiss - and I know the relationship shouldn’t matter to the story but the way the relationship is on one end, actively avoided and yet so obviously stated, sorta made it matter more for me - if that makes sense?)

STEPHAN: Yeah, it seemed like it was going somewhere more than just them being together. I want more. I should add that more doesn’t necessarily mean lesbian sex or lady nudity or anything, it’s just that the reveal that they’re lovers ends up overshadowing some of the other, better stuff in the story. For example, I didn’t even realize the Fountain of Youth had anything to do with the story until I read the supplementals. It’s clear once you see it, but I was busy trying to figure out why everyone was acting weird towards this lady. Maybe I’m just dumb, I don’t know.

ERECH: We finally get to the meat of the story, as we find out the Kit’s Mother placed her body in the swamps, hoping the power of the “Fountain of Youth” would bring her back to life. Which it does. The power of the swamps must be some kind of local knowledge, and as is the usual for these sorta tales - bringing your loved ones back as zombies never works out how you’d like. What’d you make of the writers mythology, the Mammoth and all that? I didn’t get it the symbolism (even after reading the additional case notes at the end of the book) other than just establishing this group had been around for a long time.

STEPHAN: I not only didn’t get it, but it took forever to even get to any of that stuff. We don’t even see the Mammoth until 55ish pages in. It’s the kind of detail that I would have enjoyed if the story wasn’t trying to be serious. If it was going for over the top horror, then I’m fine with the Mammoth. Instead, it was more distracting than anything. What’s going to happen with that Mammoth?? That being said, when this is a movie, the mammoth is going to be awesome.

ERECH: The writer is a zoologist, yeah? I just felt like we were left out of something there that might have made more sense as to what the significance was for that animal, the alligator stuff too. However nothing ever happened with the Mammoth, and the ritual bracelet exchange made no sense for me either. Further, as Anna ends up killing Zombie Kit in order to set her free but then lets the lawyer who helped her out go to zombie swamphell with no qualms at all 2 seconds later just felt like such a strange way to end things, and ultimately made me fully dislike Anna as a lead character.

STEPHAN: That was sudden. Why did we spend so much time setting up red herrings like Chad, if when stuff is getting really interesting, we burn through too quickly for me to follow. Maybe next time we should review some Spider-Ham books or something a little more my speed.

ERECH: Maybe the visual choice to make the girl look like the girl from Ghost World tainted me as much as the “I’m from Chad and tough” thing too, you know? I just could never buy Anna as being able to handle herself at all in any of this (and technically, she didn’t). She looks like someone who would be kicked out of the bar for smoking cloves, and then cry about it.

STEPHAN: Yeah. She’s strung up in the shack in the swamps waiting to die, and then Kit’s mom just goes and saves her no problem. Shouldn’t the hero have had to overcome a separated shoulder or something? Just bouncing from one event to another to move the story along, as different characters keep showing up to save you makes for a pretty poor protagonist. Also, I wear glasses, and I can’t see anything at a bonfire, let alone a giant peat moss cemetery fire. C’mon. The visually impaired are never depicted accurately.

ERECH: Yeah. I must admit though, when that Spanish-pirate-zombie thing took Anna from the police station, I was excited. And even through the whole underground thing, even though really confusing, I felt tense. I was waiting for more to happen and then got a bit frustrated when nothing did. Even the final showdown between the living and the “zombies” felt like an afterthought, as there wasn’t much of an impending feeling of climax or doom for it to happen the way it did, and was too short from all the build up too. I did like the overall original take on whatever, zombies or voodoo or whatever, and the idea of using Ponce De Leon as a crux of the story. Ultimately though the way all those pieces were compiled, coupled with how awkward and poor the lead of the story is, caused the book to lose too much credibility with me ( Also, having elephants and panthers felt weird mixed in, but I was willing to forgive that given the visual side of things being so fun to follow along with - zombie elephants?? YES!).

STEPHAN: Okay, enough of us complaining about the Africa interlude, let’s wrap up this review then. I have some qualms with the story, but I liked the art a bunch. Is there anything you specifically wanted to say about this? You know stuff about art. I liked the art, but that’s about all I have to say. (I don’t really know what I’m talking about with that.)

ERECH: I loved it, amazing work through-out. It felt like a throwback in a way to an older style, something from 70’s or 80’s DC books (or even old EC Comics too, Bernie Wrightson etc), but with a mix of a bit more modern photo-ref stylized crispness, maybe some Lee Weeks? The art gets nothing but praises from me, and honestly might be the reason this book exists at all, you know?

STEPHAN: How’s that?

ERECH: I just can’t imagine without the art, this book would have been published just off the script. It just reminds me of like, I’ve read enough scripts in my day to guess with a fair certainty that the writer explained in the notes to the artist what was happening better than she did to us. We get nibbles, and vague clues, but actually telling us what was going on seemed out of reach. And the supplemental stuff only barely scratches at some of the story points, and even then, who generally reads that stuff? I get it, I get it, we’re supposed to come to our own conclusions on some of it, but blah. At the end, I just never felt like I really got an explanation at all for why anything happened the way it did, neither by a new imagined mythology that made sense within the context of this new world, or even by supposing from other genre rules (these zombies seemed pretty easy to kill, weren’t afraid of fire either, but clearly had some set of ritualization and rules going on) other or other franchises onto it - a bit of Pirates of the Caribbean, Lost, and even some Preacher tossed in too. It’s a clumsy writers trick I see a lot, where they try to be more profoundly vague than needed, while not spilling enough usable info to the readers. And I get with the premise, “Zombie Fountain of Youth” going the direct route might not be the best idea either. It’s why I hate the Previews or “previously” blurbs at the front of comics though - they explain more about the last issue than the actual comic itself did, so much so that sometimes I wonder if I even read the same comic they’re synopsizing. But it seems to be a boon and a fault of independent books like this, that weigh in with not as much editorial direction as they sometimes need - because they aren’t franchises or known commodities etc. So I think, with the art of a lesser talented person than Hardman on these pages, the book might have had a much harder time finding a publisher.

STEPHAN: It felt like this was supposed to be way longer too right? A miniseries, or a tv show or movie or something? I could see this as a movie pitch, not a direct translation of it either - they’d need to write in more characters who could die before this could be a real movie, but it’s a rewrite or two from being a really great two hours of entertainment.

ERECH: I agree, this definitely feels like a rough movie pitch to me - just the fact there is so much posturing by the characters - a zombie elephant just standing around isn’t in and of itself as interesting in a comic as it would be all CGI’d up in a movie. It’s like It was Juno for me in a way, I loved all the people in that (except Rainn Wilson - grrr!) but wasn’t a fan of the script. Heathentown has that in spades - I love the elements and the ideas behind it, it looks great, and the lead character is a bit of a snark who acts like she’s got her act together better than she really does. There is an absolute love story buried underneath all of this too that would have been nice to see better explored, but the main character is just so over-produced I think (or maybe under?) that we never get to feel it. Like Juno though, I was left at the end of the story kind of scratching my head and saying “so that’s it, then?”.

STEPHAN: Huh. Well, I guess that’s not a bad summary. It sounds like we really hated it, when both of us just seem to have not necessarily loved it? Other than the writing issues we both seem to have liked, which probably could have been fixed by added 10 or 12 pages, the idea of it enough though, right?

ERECH: Yeah, totally. It’s snarky, it’s pertinent to now in a non-pertinent way with a total lack of any irony too, does that make sense? I’d like to see this expanded on at some point, or a sequel maybe. The writer seems to have a better grasp at the technical side of it all, but just couldn’t quite flesh out all her ideas smoothly enough for me. I’d really like to see the artist, Garbiel Hardman, do more books for sure - his work was a real treat to look at.

STEPHAN: The graphic novel is only $10, so that’s something. That’s not a bad amount of entertainment for $10. Okay, so now we just have to put together the actual review.

Yes, yes we do. Or we can just cut and paste and then write some drivel at the beginning and the end.

Bottomline: It’s the Juno of horror comics!

Yes, you could drop $10 on 2.5 issues of something completely meaningless (no matter how final a crisis the covers may purport) or spend $10 on great art and a better than serviceable story with Image’s Heathentown.