It’s the tail end of the 2019 Samhain season, so, in order for you to understand Dead Beats, I want to tell you a story. ^_^
When I was 8 or so, I had a baby sitter. She was an adult woman who had a kid of her own who was about my age (but who went to a different school. We had 5 elementary schools in the area I grew up, we all went to the same one middle school, then were split back up into two high schools.) Melissa – I have no idea why I remember her name, was a goth-y kid at 11. She seemed very old to me, but she liked comic books so I’d hang with her when she was home and read her comics, which were all horror. I didn’t like horror comics – they weren’t scary, so much as kind of gross and all ironic. You know what I mean, right? The person who always stole lunch from the kids was tortured by being force-fed, that kind of morality play. Terrible people getting their comeuppance. They were so tiresome and full of allegory , l which I didn’t like even back in elementary school. When Tales of the Crypt got on HBO, I was like, “Hard pass – I already read that and thought it blecch.”
So me and horror have a rocky relationship. I hate “Boo!” type scare tactics, and morality plays and guro. What’s left you may wonder. And in response, I will sigh and reply “All the well-written, funny, intelligent, creepy horror of the universe, duh~~!”
Dead Beats horror comic anthology is funny, intelligent, creepy short horror comics that completely lack the morality that made horror comics so tiresome. It’s still has some irony, but that’s to be expected.*
The premise is a visit to a cursed music shop, where the proprietor points out random items, implies horrible fates and leads us to rooms where unspoken-of unspeakable horrors occur. We then get a short horror comic – something rather funny, occasionally touching and frequently gruesome – centered around something musical-ish; an instrument, the music itself, whatever.
It was terrific. A lot of fun to read. From the ridiculous “The Cursed Saxophone of Skasferatu” to “Apolcalypse Demo, which married a bit of the end of the world to a final jam. There’s a lot of musical demonic invocation, which I always seem to like for some reason…
Overall, I haven’t had this much fun watching people die in a long time. ^_^
There’s no way to comment on art or storytelling as a whole, most stories credit three to four people on a contribution, so you’re looking a variety of writing and art and letter and coloring, all so different, you can’t really compare. But if I had to pick one story as a favorite, it’d be the ghost story written by Vita Ayala, art and coloring by Raymond Salvador and lettering by Micah Myers, “Let’s Stay Together.” When you read it, you will understand why instantly. ^_^
Dead Beats is also pleasantly – which is to say, very – diverse. It looks like the actual world I inhabit, with straight and queers folks and people of differing body types and colors and ability and yes, levels of demonic possession. This collection has a number of queer stories, from the self-affirming to the openly murderous.
No fooling, this variety made the book a lot easier to read for me. I don’t encounter Japanese schoolgirls nearly as often as, oh, just about anything else, which is not – for obvious reasons – reflected in my comics reading. It’s nice to see comic pages that look like the life I live, full of all sorts of people. People who are either killing or being killed, true, but I’m not going to lie and tell you that real life doesn’t have plenty of that, too.
Creators are likewise a magnificent palette of colors and identities. There are so many top-notch creators here, you should get this book just for the who’s who in the credits. ^_^ Which, it turns, out, you can’t just now, because the book has sold out. Hopefully they’ll get this back in stock sooner, rather than later, and you can get your fill of people being possessed, mangled, devoured, rendered and cursed!
Ratings:
Overall – 9
This was perfect Sahmain season reading.
*Use ironic endings the way you would a monkey’s paw. Sparingly and expect things to go badly.
I’m with you on the distaste for most of the horror genre. I don’t like torture porn or slashers or jump scares or body horror or any of that. I’m not a big fan of violence in general, and most of horror is about violence (or even worse, conflating sex and/or sexiness with violence). My affinity for “horror” entertainment mostly runs along the track of Buffy, X-Files, and Twin Peaks, or stuff from the dawn of cinema.
But on the other hand, I have always liked (er, obsessed over?) scary/creepy things. I had an overactive imagination as a child and was always envisioning spooks and spectres in the woods, in the closet, and down dark hallways. I loved/hated the “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” series for the Stephen Gammell illustrations that ran like wildfire through my nightmares. I’d much rather soak in the atmosphere of a late-night autumn walk past a long-abandoned farmhouse than watch someone get disemboweled on screen.
That said, where do you place “Murcielago” in all of this? “Inexplicable Exception?” XD
Interesting question, because I don’t see MURCIÉLAGO as horror at all. I absolutely understand your point, just had never considered it as a “horror” manga. It’s certainly horror-inspired and I suppose it’s meant to be horrible, but there’s been little use of fear by the author directed at the reader. The only time I feel anything approaching “horror” is when the bad-guy-du-jour is hurting innocents who are not in a position to fight back.
I don’t mind violence and, when its set up as a violent confrontation between two equally matched parties, I don’t much care what other dressing the story wears.
I like intelligent scariness. Creepy me out smartly, like Emily Carrol’s When I Arrived At The Castle .