4 out of 5

Editor: Sierra Hahn & Brendan Wright

It took me three issues to have some faith in it, but Dark Horse’s Eerie reboot is shaping up to be a well-intentioned and reliable anthology series of lightly creepy or amusing horror / sci-fi oddities.  There are some things that are slightly off about it – it doesn’t quite have a focused editorial eye yet, and so, yes, anthology series are always going to be hit or miss, but there’s a somewhat scattered sense to the stories currently.  Having not read the original ‘Eerie,’ I can’t say if the sci-fi / horror collabo thing always felt like the foremost ingredient – meaning I don’t know if there was a massive difference between this and Creepy – but while all the tales have space exploration or discovery or creation burbling around somewhere in their panels, they don’t really sing like the reprints do.  Out of the issues thus far, with 2-3 stories per book plus one reprint, I’d say its been 50 /50.  But still, full potential hasn’t quite been reached – except, maybe, Clevinger’s story in book 2 felt paced right, passionately creepy, and fully grounded in evil science.  The Uncle Eerie thing is also a bit forced.  I know he and Creepy are the crypt keepers here and so they must be included, but again, it doesn’t quite feel as natural yet.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that the experience gets docked because you can tell it’s an experience; you can tell this is a book trying to be like another book.

BUT.  Once you know where in your cheek to hold your tongue while reading, the books are a lot of fun.  The covers have been gorgeously stark choices, and the rear, duo-tone works by Wrightson are freaking awesome masterworks.  I also hope they keep up the inner cover Monster Gallery, as it’s been a fun odds and sods pictorial.  The black and white looks sharp, and the paper quality was initially thinner, maybe, to keep a 2.99 price tag… which just got bumped up to 3.99, so we’ll see how that goes.  The best and most impressive aspects, though – surprisingly – have been the reprints.  They’re well chosen and have been miraculously cleaned up (Colan’s pencils looks gorgeous; the coloring on the Corben story is disgustingly perfect) and cap each book instead of acting as filler.

It’s still early, of course, but with only a 2x a year print run, it’ll take a while to get a full feel of the series, assuming it’s allowed a long enough time to get going.