Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse Vol 1 – 3
Written and Illustrated by Ben Templesmith

reviewd by : EJTower

There is a story told by The Prince of Denmark in Hamlet about the progression of a King through the guts of a beggar.  The central figure of this story is a worm, and is often overlooked as being merely metaphorical.  It’s a drawn out story performed in iambic pentameter, so I won’t bother but to quote a line or two from it for this, my review of Ben Templesmith’s Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse series.

“Your worm,” tells Prince Hamlet, “is your only emperor for diet… we fat ourselves for maggots.  Your fat king and your lean beggar is but a variable service – two dishes, but to one table.  That’s the end.”

You should also know that there is a poem by Edgar Allen Poe called The Conqueror Worm. In this poem the angels lament the inevitable end of the human play, which always culminates, tragically, in the fangs of the conqueror worm that feeds upon our flesh after death.

All of this I offer to you as literary evidence!  Think of it as background, establishing the historicity of a character.  All of it so that when I tell you that Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse is about an immortal magical maggot that battles demons, enjoys beer, hangs out in a seedy strip club, and is protected by a clockwork bodyguard that is rather sad because he was built without genitalia – You won’t immediately shout, Ludicrous!  You must give this a chance.

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The Veil
written by El Torres
illustration by Gabriel Hernandez

reviewd by : EJTower

As the old proverb has it: in the land of the blind, the one eyed woman is queen.  But in a detective noir world tainted by the unseen presence of a viscous, Lovecraft-inspired zoology, actually seeing is a serious problem.  Christine Luna has many problems as a private investigator, she works for the dead, taking her living from the forgotten savings accounts and death throws of her clients’ remaining credit cards, but she has finally reached rock bottom, bank broke.  Returning to her home town in Maine, she plans to sell off the old family property, but instead unearths ghosts from her past that answer questions she never dared to ask.  Ghosts that force her to remember: the accident that gave her the power to see beyond the veil, the world that lurks beyond, and the one who is waiting there to come through.

In The Veil, El Torres writes a story worthy of the Lovecraft mythos that is fused perfectly with the frenetic, atmospheric art of Gabriel Hernandez.  The art manages the impossible perfectly, by illustrating moments of indescribable horror, while maintaining the noir feel in moments of apparent normalcy.  The singular failure of the work is the rapid conclusion, which might have benefited from a more gradual turn around and fewer hasty transitions from place to place, but this does not seriously detract from the whole.  This graphic novel is a fitting choice for anyone who can properly speak the name Cthulhu, although the great old one does not appear in this work.  Originally released in four single issues, it is now available in a single book from IDW Publishing.

overall 8 . story 7 . art 8

more info at www.idwpublishing.com