Waxwork Comics 2018
Written by Matt Miner
Illustrated by Clay McCormack
Coloured by Doug Garbark
Lettered by Taylor Esposito
Fear has befallen Redondo Beach. Young punks travel together in groups and the town is on high alert. The "Poser" killings have continued and the body count shows no sign of slowing! You might ask yourself, "How could HELL be any worse?" Copycat killers stalk the beach. Adults are now targeted. NO ONE IS SAFE! Will the influx of police officers into the terrorized beach town catch Poser? Can Ash and her misfit group of friends elude the edge of Poser's razor-sharp blade?
So there are a lot of things about this that I am so totally digging and getting those good vibrations from, it’s giving off good vibrations-he’s giving me the excitations-no I couldn’t resist. I think what Matt is doing here is firmly entrenching him into the industry as one of those writers you need to pay attention to. He has talent, skill and knows how to weave a story so that what should have been a slasher genre style and turned it into this horror/thriller mystery is beautifully done. Yes there is what one more issue left and it is time that the killer were revealed, well almost time I suppose though I wish that weren’t the case.
The way that this book is structured is sensational to me. The opening here picks up where last issue left off at the beach where Ash and Evan are accosted by those using the Poser to do some terrorising of their own. I could go on about opportunistic creeps or society as a whole but I won’t instead I will say that my mind went a million different places in the opening. That it did is a testament to how well Matt wrote it and fleshed out the characters and we all know how I feel about a story that encourages the readers mind to go past what is on the page!
I don’t think there is enough time for us to go into why Ash has so much animosity and mood swings when it comes to her father. I think he tries and that should count for something but whatever it is that is the real thing that is between them well that’s more a second arc kind of focus. Provided of course there is one or could be one. Still the way that that intertwines with how we see Poser’s next attack well it all plays into the way we see fear.
Clay and Doug make a really good team here. There is something about the way we see Clay’s scratchy linework bringing the pages to life that is kind of remarkable. I love how we see the detail emerge from the work and the faces with their emotions or the hair on a man’s arm there’s this unassuming way it all comes together. There is also a sense of creativity and imagination that we see here as well and in the Poser mask or the clown masks on the beach which believe it or not add a bit of levity to an otherwise dark story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off a really strong, talented eye for storytelling. Yes I would like to see backgrounds utilised more because when we see them they really do expand the moments and bring a nice size and scope to what we see. The colour work too is great stuff and I like the way it finishes the work off.
For what almost appears to be an homage to old 80’s slasher films this is a smartly written, intelligent story that has some wonderful pacing, characterisation and story/plot development. It also has some wonderful interior artwork which makes this seem more like it’s more story than slasher and that’s the way to go. This is much creepier than you’ll ever expect it to be and that’s a huge selling point for me!