The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1374: High Heaven #3, 2018

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1373: Edgar Allan Poe's Snifter of Terror #2, 2018

Ahoy Comics continues to crush it with every issue published.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1356: Edgar Allan Poe's Snifter of Terror #1, 2018

I hadn't realized, but I really have been tracing a bit of a lineage over the last few days.

One thing I haven't mentioned about the Moon Girl replicas is that they start with #5 because the very first EC horror story appears in it. So Moon Girl is the progenitor of the magazines that we see in the Vault of Horror reprint series. As I noted when I talked about that comic, Bruce Jones' Twisted Tales keeps the EC horror tradition alive through the waning years of the Comics Code that had ended those comics in the 50s. And now today's comic, a horror/comedy compilation, hosted by a cranky and verbose Poe, continues the tradition. It's gross, it's shocking, and, much like its earlier ancestors, it has a healthy sense of humour about itself.

I've told everyone I can to read the comics that Ahoy is putting out right now. I really am amazed at how strong every title is, and for those with multiple issues, have continued to be. There would have to be some serious, serious ball-dropping for me to lose interest in any of these titles, for which my brain is grateful, my wallet less-so.

"Dark Chocolate" - the comic opens with an adaptation of Poe's story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," and then the balance of the book is given mostly to this haunting tale of a noble, a sorrowful vampire, known across the land for not giving dinner parties, but breakfasts. His name? Count Cocoa. After reading this, you'll never eat that cereal the same way again. It really is a lovely story, seemingly amusing thanks to its liberal borrowing of mascots, but growing ever more suspenseful as the sunlight creeps across the breakfast table, and the Count's narration becomes more and more harrowing.

Seriously, just go read one of their comics. I can't imagine a fan of the medium, or just a fan of good stories, not enjoying them.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1345: Captain Ginger #1, 2018

I have been waxing lyrical on Twitter about Ahoy Comics' publications. So let's have a look at one of them.

But first, let me just say, that all of their comics, thus far, have been really excellent. I think it's because you've got a group of very experienced creators, people who not only know the industry and the medium, but who, in some very real ways, actually shaped it. I will forever be indebted to Tom Peyer for his work on Doom Patrol, as I still consider it the pinnacle of super-team story telling. And I'm not naive enough to think that there isn't something of him in that series. Also, Hourman is simply one of the best things DC Comics has ever published, and I wish it had run for a much longer time than it did. It is bar none the best Snapper Carr story ever.

But enough of that. What of the comic?

I want you to imagine cats in space. But not the barely feline, actually-humans but with more fur and cuter noses that we see in a lot of science fiction anthropomorphic fiction. No, these are fucking cats. Independent, flighty, driven by instinct, and, somehow, they're flying a spaceship and having battles with a race of sentient lights.

(Which, honestly, leads to one of the funniest sequences in a comic that I've read for a long time.)

Stuart Moore has a great grasp of feline psychology, and the inner monologue of Ginger himself, wrestling with the sides of his personality, wanting to be like the extinct "feeders" (that's us) and also wanting to embrace his cat-ness, is just lovely. I alternately want to go for a drink with Ginger, scratch him behind the ears, and, if I'm to be honest, date him. But let's not get into that last one.

I am excited to see where this series goes. One of the things I'm very much appreciating about Ahoy's line is that it's diverse. Each book has its own voice, its own genre, and each excels in what it sets out to do. I highly recommend any of their titles.

More to come...