John Carpenter’s Asylum Review
Storm King Productions, Inc.
Created by: John Carpenter, Thomas Ian Griffith and Sandy King.
Written by: Bruce Jones.
Art and cover by: Leonardo Manco.
Colours by: Kinsun Loh.
Lettered by: Janice Chiang
Summary: There’s a war coming and the battle ground is the City of Angels. In tunnels beneath the city, in the dark alleys among the homeless…demons lurk and Lucifer bides his time. One man knows. One man sees. One man walks those dark streets.
Review: I’m a big fan of John Carpenter; he directed The Thing, one of my all time favourite movies and he’s responsible for the best parts of Kurt Russell’s career. He brought us Snake Plisskin!!! Can you imagine a world without Snake Plisskin? I sure can’t.
But Carpenter has done more than just a load of movies. He was a story consultant for video game franchise F.E.A.R and now he’s working on a comic book series, which he co-created with Thomas Ian Griffith (who worked with Carpenter in Vampires) and Sandy King (a producer on a bunch of Carpenter’s movies, including Vampires).
Asylum follows Father Daniel Becket, a disgraced priest who happens to be losing faith. He spends his free time performing exorcisms at the request of a long time friend and fellow priest, Father Leone, who runs a Los Angeles church.
Father Leone sends him to exorcise a particularly dangerous demon from a man called Jackson, who’s responsible for several murders. And in comes our second protagonist, Sergeant Jack Duran; a cynical hard ass, almost to the point of being a stereotype.
The two clash when Duran gets a call to check out suspicious noises that could be related to the slayings he and his partner, Maria, have been investigating. Turns out they are related! It also turns out Becket’s there trying to rip the demon out as it crawls around on the ceiling and walls!
Things only get worse for both of them as the story progresses. I’m talking holy war, people! This isn’t your average possession, here. And if Becket can’t stop it, Los Angeles will become the setting for a big, messy invasion of Satan and his minions... This would be the perfect place to put an Escape from L.A reference IF I COULD THINK OF ONE.
Duran, the cynic that he is, constantly shows up just in time to see Becket doing something that could be... misinterpreted. This, obviously, makes it difficult for Becket to save the world.
A lot of things have happened in the first four issues. There’s the threat of war, possessions, violence, boobs, and abductions. Also, birds get puked up! How cool is that?
The book is actually written by Bruce Jones, who has written a lot of Marvel and DC stuff in the past. With something like this, it could be that a big name has only been attached to sell the book but it’s clear Jones takes a lot from Carpenter’s influence. There’s a very 80s horror movie kind of feel about the story and there’s a fair few scenes that seem like they’d fit right into one of Carpenter’s movies.
The script also comes with a lot of the negatives you get in these movies; overly cynical cops, sex hungry partners, and so on. Some of the dialogue also seems a bit forced and cheesy. It feels like all of this is done on purpose, to make it seem like an older movie. Other people have tried that and failed miserably. Here, however, it seems to work for the most part.
The art for the book is provided by Leonardo Manco, who has worked with Mike Carey on Hellblazer. In Hellblazer his work was incredible; it was detailed, dark and gritty. Here, however, it seems to have declined. I haven’t seen any of his work since Hellblazer but it’s sad to see it’s not as great as it once was. That’s not to say it’s not good, however.
Manco still puts a lot of detail into each panel but it seems to have lost the dark, gritty feeling. Maybe this is down to Kinsun Loh’s colours but I highly doubt it. Loh’s colours are actually pretty great. He’s essential to the feel of this book. Without his colours, the 80s vibe wouldn’t be quite as obvious.
But some artists change. Perhaps Manco prefers to do things this way, now. Whatever the case, it’s still a mighty fine looking book.
I can’t recommend this book to everyone. If you don’t like 80s horror, you’re probably not going to like it. But, if you don’t like 80s horror, I probably won’t like YOU. So give it a read if you’ve got good taste. It’s like reading a John Carpenter movie.
Storm King Productions, Inc.
Created by: John Carpenter, Thomas Ian Griffith and Sandy King.
Written by: Bruce Jones.
Art and cover by: Leonardo Manco.
Colours by: Kinsun Loh.
Lettered by: Janice Chiang
Summary: There’s a war coming and the battle ground is the City of Angels. In tunnels beneath the city, in the dark alleys among the homeless…demons lurk and Lucifer bides his time. One man knows. One man sees. One man walks those dark streets.
Review: I’m a big fan of John Carpenter; he directed The Thing, one of my all time favourite movies and he’s responsible for the best parts of Kurt Russell’s career. He brought us Snake Plisskin!!! Can you imagine a world without Snake Plisskin? I sure can’t.
But Carpenter has done more than just a load of movies. He was a story consultant for video game franchise F.E.A.R and now he’s working on a comic book series, which he co-created with Thomas Ian Griffith (who worked with Carpenter in Vampires) and Sandy King (a producer on a bunch of Carpenter’s movies, including Vampires).
Asylum follows Father Daniel Becket, a disgraced priest who happens to be losing faith. He spends his free time performing exorcisms at the request of a long time friend and fellow priest, Father Leone, who runs a Los Angeles church.
Father Leone sends him to exorcise a particularly dangerous demon from a man called Jackson, who’s responsible for several murders. And in comes our second protagonist, Sergeant Jack Duran; a cynical hard ass, almost to the point of being a stereotype.
The two clash when Duran gets a call to check out suspicious noises that could be related to the slayings he and his partner, Maria, have been investigating. Turns out they are related! It also turns out Becket’s there trying to rip the demon out as it crawls around on the ceiling and walls!
Things only get worse for both of them as the story progresses. I’m talking holy war, people! This isn’t your average possession, here. And if Becket can’t stop it, Los Angeles will become the setting for a big, messy invasion of Satan and his minions... This would be the perfect place to put an Escape from L.A reference IF I COULD THINK OF ONE.
Duran, the cynic that he is, constantly shows up just in time to see Becket doing something that could be... misinterpreted. This, obviously, makes it difficult for Becket to save the world.
A lot of things have happened in the first four issues. There’s the threat of war, possessions, violence, boobs, and abductions. Also, birds get puked up! How cool is that?
The book is actually written by Bruce Jones, who has written a lot of Marvel and DC stuff in the past. With something like this, it could be that a big name has only been attached to sell the book but it’s clear Jones takes a lot from Carpenter’s influence. There’s a very 80s horror movie kind of feel about the story and there’s a fair few scenes that seem like they’d fit right into one of Carpenter’s movies.
The script also comes with a lot of the negatives you get in these movies; overly cynical cops, sex hungry partners, and so on. Some of the dialogue also seems a bit forced and cheesy. It feels like all of this is done on purpose, to make it seem like an older movie. Other people have tried that and failed miserably. Here, however, it seems to work for the most part.
The art for the book is provided by Leonardo Manco, who has worked with Mike Carey on Hellblazer. In Hellblazer his work was incredible; it was detailed, dark and gritty. Here, however, it seems to have declined. I haven’t seen any of his work since Hellblazer but it’s sad to see it’s not as great as it once was. That’s not to say it’s not good, however.
Manco still puts a lot of detail into each panel but it seems to have lost the dark, gritty feeling. Maybe this is down to Kinsun Loh’s colours but I highly doubt it. Loh’s colours are actually pretty great. He’s essential to the feel of this book. Without his colours, the 80s vibe wouldn’t be quite as obvious.
But some artists change. Perhaps Manco prefers to do things this way, now. Whatever the case, it’s still a mighty fine looking book.
I can’t recommend this book to everyone. If you don’t like 80s horror, you’re probably not going to like it. But, if you don’t like 80s horror, I probably won’t like YOU. So give it a read if you’ve got good taste. It’s like reading a John Carpenter movie.