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The Conqueror Weird

~ Musings on the Dark and the Hellish

The Conqueror Weird

Tag Archives: Graphic Novel

“The Stiff” (Review)

19 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by Brian O'Connell in Reviews

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Comic, Graphic Novel, High School, Jason Bradley Thompson, Novel, Webcomic

The Stiff Part One Title Page

The Stiff
by Jason Bradley Thompson

Note: I should say in advance that the media reviewed is as of yet incomplete.

As a high school freshman myself, I find horror stories about high school fascinating. It’s not like you need that much embellishment. High schoolers already have to deal with mental/emotional shifts, a sense of discomfort in their own body, vicious social structures practically designed to screw people over, the conflict between a longing for childhood irresponsibility and a hunger for being recognized as mature, a gnawing sense of existential dread, the growing desynchronization of the mind-body/childhood-adulthood dichtomies…

Ahem. Well, this is not a confessional booth. Suffice to say, high school is generally unpleasant for most people, and usually stressful, so its not that hard to imagine horror in that setting.

At least, not hard for Jason Bradley Thompson, whose webcomic* The Stiff is the best high school horror story I’ve yet to read.

The Stiff follows Alistair Toth (prepare yourself for the references!), a student** at Larkspur High who is obsessed with horror film, fiction, and the like. He’s also, as the title suggests, a bit of a stiff: he claims to be asexual, doesn’t drink or smoke, and seems utterly disgusted by the idea of sex. The closest thing to a friend” he has is Jamie Etchison, who (unlike Alistair) is not only open to things like sex but is actively exploring her newfound sexuality.

Things get complicated when new student Alice Hoffman arrives at school. She actually begins to stir up some feelings in Alistair, leading to several fantasies of his which we see depicted (him and her being the last two survivors of a zombie apocalypse, etc.). But this isn’t a normal crush. Something much more subversive and disturbing is at work.

Things really go into a tailspin when Alistair is temporarily hypnotized at a party. Social problems created by this incident aside, he becomes fascinated by hypnotism, and, one day when he’s home with a fever, suffering from frenzied nightmares, he chooses to hypnotize himself.

2013-07-10-TS-0028-willnotchange

To say anything more would be a spoiler.

The story is slow. Thompson allows it to move at its own pace, jumping back and forth in time, showing the same events from different perspectives. This really helps build character and setting. By chapter four of the work (as of right now, there are five chapters, an unfinished sixth chapter, and a prologue) I felt firmly rooted in the lives of the major characters. They’re all likable people, particularly Alistair (when he’s not being pretentious!) and Jamie. Their conversations aren’t forced, the dialogue (despite a few misspellings) feels real. They act like normal people (well, most of the time. Alistair has a few things going on, so it’s not out of place.) and I feel like I know them.

Alistair’s struggle with his crush for Alice Hoffman can be interpreted as…well, what it is: a crush. It can be strange (and certainly frightening) to develop a crush on someone for the first time, especially when one is so conditioned against the concept of romance as Alistair is. Of course, in Alistair’s case, things are a little more unusual, but on the whole Thompson very effectively replicates the tumultuous emotions that go along with having a crush.

The horror itself is still in the shadows, and even after reading all of it I still don’t know what’s going on. That’s a wonderful feeling, though, isn’t it? The ambiguity of what’s really going on (and there is a lot of it!) is the very best kind of torture. Thompson is building an atmosphere, layer by layer, and the mystery of what the threat actually is is what makes it so haunting.

For this reason I hesitate to call The Stiff: Part One complete horror. The slow burn and the sheer unnaturalness of what is going on puts it more in line with modern weird fiction, or with Robert Aickman’s idea of the “strange story”, than with what I’ve come to know as horror. (Although, really, who needs demarcation lines for genre?)

The allusions, though, are unmistakable. There’s a student called Shirley Jackson, a dog named Sredni Vashtar. Even Larkspur, the genus that gives Alistair’s high school its name, is entirely toxic. This is the decidedly “meta” (and certainly tragic) twist to the story: Alistair is trapped in a scary story and doesn’t realize it, just like the hapless protagonists that he’s so fond of reading about.

Now onto the art. Ah, the art. Jason Bradley Thompson had already proved his artistic merit to me when I started reading The Stiff: Part One with his absolutely incredible adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (which you can, and most certainly should, buy here). This project doesn’t offer up monsters or splendor, except in Alistair’s dream/fantasy sequences and the title pages of each chapter (which are drawn with obvious relish).

2014-09-10-TS-0177.jpg
Chapter five title page

The art makes use of bold outlines and sharp crosshatching, leading to a claustrophobic sense of darkness. The characters, on the other hand, stand out bright white against the page, sometimes ugly, other times beautiful. When the horror comes a-creeping it is visibly shown in the panels: gnarled, decaying blotches of darkness ooze into the panels and indeed into the characters themselves. It made me feel physically uncomfortable at times, which is saying something.

There’s also so much attention to detail that it borders on obsessive. If you look at the panel of Alistair hypnotizing himself, you can read the title of more or less every book on his shelf. There’s a magazine called Film Threat on his dresser, and a mug of some liquid on the floor. It must take quite some time to cram so much into a single panel, but it certainly pays off.

Thompson once worked at VIZ Media, co-wrote a (quite entertaining, even for someone not particularly interested in the subject) column called House of 1000 Manga, and designed an acclaimed game called Mangaka, so its no surprise that his art can show the manga influence at times. His characters’ expressions, in particular, can be reminiscent of traditional Japanese comics. This is not a bad thing; on the contrary, I found it to be a bit of a breath of fresh air, given the style that most major American comics are drawn in.

The art does start out a bit rough, but greatly improves over time. Thompson himself noted this in his comments to the second page of the prologue: “the art in the early pages […] is old and sometimes a little embarrassing. […] Part of me wants to redraw these early pages, but recently I’ve come to the conclusion that artists going back and redrawing/rewriting their old stuff is a waste of time creatively”. It’s a matter of this (in chapter one):

Wham

Versus this (in chapter six):

Chomp

It’s worth sticking with.

It would probably be pertinent to mention at this point that, unfortunately, The Stiff (in its webcomic incarnation) has been canceled. Writes Thompson:

I set myself up with an artstyle [sic] too detailed and a plot too long to finish in the format I chose. […] thinking of the tremendous time investment it would take to draw those 750+ remaining pages, I think of the dozens of other, newer projects I’d rather do with that time. And when I think of leaving the sad, dangling possibility that *someday* I’ll finish drawing it, I think of other unfinished-but-never-officially-canceled comics that have bugged me and my friends over the years […]Inasmuch as possible, I’d rather not be part of such company, and have The Stiff[***] be a dead webcomic rather than an eternally-waiting-to-be-finished comic.

This was sad news to me when I initially read it, but not all hope is lost. “I’m going to finish The Stiff[****] as a prose novel,” he says in the same post. “Prose has vastly different requirements than comics and the resulting work will surely be different than a graphic novel would have been, but at least in prose I can honestly say that it *will* get done.”

It will be interesting to see The Stiff in a prose format, and how the comic will play off the writing. I am, however, wholly invested in it. God knows when it’ll be done, but I can wait.

Even in its current, half finished state, I can confidently say that The Stiff is one of the best weird fiction stories I’ve ever read, period. Yes, I’m going there. In my opinion, Thompson is in the league with the best of Lovecraft, Robert Aickman, Laird Barron, Matthew M. Bartlett, Ramsey Campbell, Michael Wehunt, Nathan Ballingrud, et al. Even if the story were to remain unfinished, it would still remain one of the best things I’ve ever read.

It just checks off everything that makes a really effective weird tale: compelling characters, disturbing horror/menace, the unknown, modern sensibility, and all the others. Part of me is worried that I might be overselling it, so keep your expectations low…but I’m not overselling it. At least, not in my opinion, which I recognize isn’t everyone’s.

I’ve gushed quite enough, and, it being a Sunday, I have school tomorrow. I’ll walk down the hall, go to my classes, doodle pentagrams in the margins of my notebook and scribble them out, and try not to let the day-to-day fear of death get to me. After reading The Stiff, though, that’s just a little harder…and I couldn’t be more glad for it.

You can (and most certainly should!) read The Stiff (so far) starting here. You can also just browse Mr. Thompson’s website, which is brimming with wonderful art and comics. The Comics Archive is a good place to start.


ANNOTATIONS

*For those who don’t know, a webcomic is defined as “a series of comic strips published online”, though it generally means any form of graphic media (not just comic strips) that one can read online.

**I hesitate to write freshman/sophomore/junior/senior because I’m sure I’d get it wrong, given that the story kind of hops around in time and space. Just…read the comic.

***My italics.

****My italics.

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Best of 2016

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by Brian O'Connell in Best of

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Andrew Leman, Arthur Machen, Chapbooks, Charles Meyer, Christopher Ropes, Collections, Comic, Conventions, Dave Felton, Dim Shores, Dreams, Dunhams Manor Press, Dynatox Ministries, Ellen Datlow, Episodic, Gothic, Graphic Novel, H.P. Lovecraft, Halloween, James Quigley, Jon Padgett, Jonathan Raab, Julia Gfrörer, Justine Jones, Laird Barron, Leeds, Leeman Kessler, Lisa Hanawalt, Livia Llewellyn, Martian Migraine Press, Matthew M. Bartlett, McManbeast Books, Michael Bukowski, Michael Griffin, Michael Wehunt, Monsters, Movies, Muzzleland Press, New England Horror Writers, Nick Gucker, Novel, Novelette, Novella, NSFW, Occult, Orford Parish, Perpetual Motion Machine, Philip Fracassi, Philip LoPresti, Podcasts, Record, Richard Svensson, Robert Eggers, S.P. Miskowski, Salem, Satanic, Scott Nicolay, Sean Branney, Sean M. Thompson, Serial, Seventh Church Ministries, Tom Breen, Vinyl, Word Horde, Yves Tourigny

Wow, 2016. What a year…

On the bright side I was finally welcomed into the fold of the community (I think), I had my first three stories published (two of which were illustrated!), the blog got good(ish) traffic, I went to both KrallCon and ReaderCon (both of which were amazing), we started to run Sean M. Thompson’s excellent serialized novella The Demon, the Month of Bartlett was fantastic, and on the whole it was a pretty awesome year for weird/horror fiction.

On the dark side the world seems more bleak than ever, I went through some pretty terrible things, and [politics politics politics].

My “Best of 2016” list is somewhat half-assed and rather quickly slapped together, but I think its representative of most of the truly special stuff I read this year. Criteria:

  • has to have come out this year
  • I have to have read it/watched it/etc. (of course)

Novels/Novellas

  • Noctuidae (Scott Nicolay)
  • Altar (Philip Fracassi)
  • The Lesser Swamp Gods of Little Dixie (Jonathan Raab)

Chapbooks

  • Stag in Flight (S.P. Miskowski; illus. Nick Gucker)
  • Split Tongues (Kristi DeMeester; illus. Natalia Drepina)
  • The Free School (Cody Goodfellow; illus. James Quigley)
  • Spettrini (Matthew M. Bartlett)
  • Baphomitzvah (Maxwell Bauman)
  • Orford Parish Murder Houses (Tom Breen)

(Christopher Ropes’ Complicity gets an honorable mention here, even though I haven’t gotten the chance to read it yet.)

Collections

  • Swift to Chase (Laird Barron)
  • Singing With All My Skin and Bone (Sunny Moraine)
  • Furnace (Livia Llewellyn)

Debuts

  • Greener Pastures (Michael Wehunt)
  • The Lure of Devouring Light (Michael Griffin)
  • The Secret of Ventriloquism (Jon Padgett)
  • Too Late (Sean M. Thompson)

Mosaic Novel(la)s

  • Creeping Waves (Matthew M. Bartlett)
  • Wytchcult Rising (Philip LoPresti)

Anthologies

  • Eternal Frankenstein (ed. Ross E. Lockhart)
  • Cthulhusattva: Tales of the Black Gnosis (ed. Scott R. Jones)
  • Lost Signals: Horror Transmissions (eds. Max Booth III and Lori Michelle)
  • Nightmares: a New Decade of Modern Horror (ed. Ellen Datlow)
  • Wicked Witches: an Anthology of the New England Horror Writers (eds. Scott T. Goudsward, David Price, and Daniel G. Keohane)

Comics

  • Providence (writer Alan Moore; illus. Jason Burrows)
  • Colder: Toss the Bones (writer Paul Tobin; illus. Juan Ferreya)
  • Laid Waste (Julia Gfrörer)
  • Panther (Brecht Evens)
  • Hot Dog Taste Test (Lisa Hanawalt)

(There’s a horror comic in Hot Dog Taste Test, but on the whole its humor. Nonetheless, its really, really good.)

Magazines

  • Night Watch (eds. Tallboy and Krusty)
  • Ravenwood Quarterly (eds. Travis Neisler and Christopher Ropes)

(Full disclosure: I have been published in Ravenwood and occasionally wade through the submission slush to help out, thus making me “assistant editor”. I stand by my statements – its a good magazine.)

Zines

  • Phantasmagoria (Johanna Öst)
  • Beneath a Dim Sun (Justine Jones)
  • Outer Monstrosities (Nick Gucker)

Audio/Podcasts

  • Miskatonic Musings (hosts Sean M. Thompson, Leeman Kessler, and Charles Meyer)
  • Spooklights (hosts Jonathan Raab and Matthew M. Bartlett)
  • The Outer Dark (host Scott Nicolay)
  • Werewolf Ambulance (hosts Allen Hitches and Katie Markowski)
  • Dark Adventure Radio Theatre (directors Andrew Leman and Sean Branney)
  • Pickman’s Model (reader Andrew Leman)

Films

  • The Witch (dir. Robert Eggers)
  • Arrival (dir. Denis Villeneuve)

Television Shows

  • Salem (creators Adam Simon and Brannon Braga)
  • Stranger Things (creators the Duffer Brothers)
  • BoJack Horseman (creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg)

(BoJack Horseman is not a horror show, but it’s so damn good that it deserves to be here.)


That’s it! Happy holidays to all from the hellhole of suffering and damnation that is the Conqueror Weird. Here are some cool illustrations that were either based on my work (!!!!) or involved me in some way. Let’s hope 2017 is better!

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Illustration by Richard Svensson for this blog

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Illustration by Michael Grant Kellermeyer for “Woodland”

Matthew M. Bartlett Portrait

Portrait of Matthew M. Bartlett by Dave Felton

Portrait (without Texture)

Business card portrait of yours truly by Yves Tourigny

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Matthew M. Bartlett-based card game illustration by Yves Tourigny (I modeled)

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Album art by Michael Bukowski for an audio dramatization of Matthew M. Bartlett’s “Gateways to Abomination”

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Illustration by Dave Felton for “My Mother’s Skin”

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  • “The Stiff” (Review)
  • Orford Parish Books Publications 1 – 4 (Review)

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