4 out of 5

We can maybe imagine that James Harren’s wonderfully garish artwork on this two-parter twigged some thoughts in Arcudi’s brain for pairing with the artist on his creature feature, Rumble.  The same kind of kinda straight-forward, kinda-goofy, always-fun-to-look-at spirit exists here, with Abe’s trek to talk to an author he’s interested in turning into a mad bash and slash in the bowels of said author’s house.

John and Mike spin up and quick demon-worshipping justification for the madness taking place, and then maybe go a step toward the unnecessary – packing in more exposition than we need – in seeing how said worship has affected the author’s family, as well.  The setup is a little slow, but Harren’s art gives everyone such vibrant personalities that even chatter scenes are engaging; when we get down to business, it’s some of the most awe-inspiring stuff we’ve seen in an HB book, with James getting my vote for the best depictor of action across all the books.  Mike has his own flavor of action, of course, but it’s very still and moody; James gives it bite, and some of these images are downright scary.

And, as with some of my favorite HB tales, it ends on a good yuk.