| Comic Review | Paul Milligan |
Hector Plasm: De Mortuis One-Shot
Writer: Benito Cereno
Artist: Nate Bellegarde
Colorists: Jacob Baake & Randall Whiteis
Hector
Plasm is one of the Benandante, a small group of people born
with the ability to see and communicate with the dead. De Mortuis is a 48-page collection of new and reworked tales of
Hector and his encounters with ghosts, demons and
life-sucking mummies.
I’ve been eagerly anticipating this book since I first heard
about it months ago and I’m glad to say that I was not
disappointed in the least. In fact, the book exceeded my
wildest expectations. With seven complete stories it’s
filled to bursting with some of the coolest action, humor
and horror this side of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. Each story
in this one-shot is just as good, if not better, than the
last. And each one has a unique flavor not only in terms of
characters and setting but also in the style of writing and
art. And though all of the stories were great I did manage
to pick out a few favorites.
Skull Creek Reservation is a quirky three pager that offers
a humorous twist on the haunted burial ground theme. The end
of that one really had me chuckling. Vs. the Mummy was a
fantastic done-in-one six-page story written by artist Nate
Bellegarde. It was almost my favorite part of the whole
comic. Almost, if not for the 14-page origin of Hector Plasm,
Born With a Silly Who, which is packed with as much action,
humor, magical insights and spooky legends as the rest of
the book combined. This story was what really cemented my
love of this character and my realization that Benito and Nate were not screwing around. They’ve put a lot of thought
into this character and his world and it certainly shows.
Seriously, Benito Cereno and Nate Bellegarde have knocked it
out of the park with this book. If they’re not one of the
next big creative teams in the industry I’ll eat my hat.
That is, if I wore a hat. Fine, I’ll buy a hat, whatever.
These two have crafted an amazing comic that will appeal to
fans of just about any genre, from westerns to horror and
even superhero comics. Whatever you do, make sure you buy
this comic and see to it that these guys keep on making
great funny books. I’m dying to see more awesome adventures
featuring Hector Plasm and company.
Special thanks go out to Jeremy Shorr, owner of Titan Comics for allowing us to use his advance preview books for review purposes.
