1 out of 5

There’s a pin-up of hammer-wielding tabloid journalist Sidney with Nancy in Hell in the back of this one-shot, which should give you an idea of the big-boobs-and-blood camp the dumbly named Massacre (book copyright is to Alejandro Miguel de Hoyos) is going for here.  Here’s what I can say: The Kelley Jones-reminiscient artwork is okay.  Otherwise the book makes a complete lack of sense – although maybe close enough to a Z-grade lack of sense to be entertaining – and seems to think it’s giving us a reason to read when, really, we’re just waiting to see if anything develops out of this…  The gist is that Hammer is a journo, and in writing for sleazy mag Sunset, apparently comes across real versions of the things (vampires, aliens, etc.) you read about in those pages.  This is explained in one flashback panel, so, in a way, it’s nice that Massacre realized (or writes so poorly that it just so happened this way) that modern readers don’t need much more than this for context.  During the 48-page “mystery” regarding some unsolved murders, we also get pointless details like a curious call from Sidney’s boss; a reference to her dog Bush which never seems to amount to anything (except maybe an inside joke for the artist?) and a band with an Elvis clone as the guitarist.  Flipping through the book to review these details, I’m tempted to bump the rating, but, eh, I don’t want to encourage the notion that this stuff actually makes the comic any better.  Rather, it reads like something that one person found hilarious and then forgot to translate it to something that would actually be effective outside of their own thoughts.

I’m still… hanging onto Amigo (Sidney’s publisher), because their minis have been consistent off-kilter entertainment. These attempts at camp, though, have been rather uncomfortable forays, so I’m glad they’re being kept to one-shots.