2 out of 5

A short-lived (two issue) anthology edited by indie-80s-prolific Valarie Jones, Asylum gathers some name creators to deliver some beautifully illustrated, but very underwhelming, horror stories.

James Robert Smith and Christopher Schenck give us underwater-monster tale The Call that works, for the most part, but does an odd last-panel dodge that doesn’t add anything.

I checked this out mainly for Steve Bissette’s and Alex Nino’s entry, Spurs, but it’s quite a narrative mess of… revenge, or something, with look alike characters and embarrassingly accented dialogue assembled into a go nowhere tale that I guess peaks with a bloody beating.  Nino’s art feels oddly sloppy, and Bissette adds a footnote that suggests this was an old story, reworked for this issue, and something about that maybe didn’t translate well.

Tom Yeats and Jon B. Bright adapt a Clark Ashton Smith story in The Ninth Skeleton.  Unfortunately, this is a tale better left in written form, as the denouncement holds no intrigue as an illustrated story.  The art is pretty but sorta stagnant as per the contents.

The front cover by Wrightson and back cover by Jones ROCK though, and are indicative of a much cooler book.