Words Unwritten
The Unwritten #4
Tom Taylor is at his father’s mansion in France, looking for answers to about his disappearance and about all the strangeness plaguing his life. But the assassin Pullman is stalking the writers through the mansion, re-enacting the plots of a few dozen slasher movies — stabbing a couple with a sickle, burning another on an oven, slashing another with glass shards, torturing another while tied to a grandfather clock. And Tom gets left to take the blame for all of it.
Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice little dash of horror-flick terror to go along with the modern literature fantasy — I do love the way Pullman specifically says he’s following the familiar tropes of slasher horror. Tom Taylor sure does keep getting in over his head, don’t he?
Madame Xanadu #14
Our 15th-century flashback this issue focuses on Nimue’s girlfriend being taken and tortued by the Spanish Inquisition. Meanwhile, in the 20th century, Madame Xanadu is on the trail of the deadly supernatural killer, but she needs more information to track him down. So she sneaks into the home of Richard Miller, one of the potential targets, to look for more clues. She soon discovers that Miller is secretly Jewish, but her investigation is interrupted by everyone’s favorite gas-masked Golden Age vigilante, the Sandman. She gives him the slip and uses the artifacts she’s collected to look into the past, where she discovers that the murdered men’s ancestors were all Jews in 15th century Spain — where all religions but Catholicism were illegal. To save themselves and their families, they turned informer, ratting out local Muslims to Torquemada’s enforcers — until a sorcerer sets a demon after them, and they’re all forced to flee — but it appears the demon has finally caught up to them now…
Verdict: Thumbs up. This is still an awfully fun comic, thanks to Matt Wagner’s consistently awesome writing and the absolutely gorgeous artwork by Michael Wm. Kaluta. If you’re into weird but stylish fantasy and horror, you should be picking this up.