Welcome, kiddies, to another edition of Creepshow. It’s amazing that you boils and ghouls keep coming back for more! You must be gluttons for punishment, eh? Your Major Spoilers review of Creepshow #2 from Image Comics awaits!

CREEPSHOW #2

Writer: David Lapham/Maria Lapham/Steve Foxe
Artist: David Lapham/Erica Henderson
Colorist: Trish Mulvihill/Erica Henderson
Letterer: Pat Brosseau
Editor: Alex Antone
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 26, 2022

Previously in Creepshow: The Creep is ready to regale us all with the tale of a tree whose roots grew so deep they reached Hell… and the girl who sat beneath it.

IN THE SHADOW OF E.C. COMICS

The Creep opens this story by introducing us to Daphne, a little girl who loved the big, shady tree in her backyard… until she didn’t. There’s no real explanation of why, but one day Daphne suddenly refuses to go in the yard again, even to retrieve her favorite toys. A playdate ends with her friend fleeing in terror, and her parents’ arguing starts to get more and more common and much more vehement. When she imagines chopping someone to pieces with an axe and using their remains to fertilize her tree, Daphne thinks that the horror can’t get any worse…

…and then she notices the roots growing through the wall into her room.

Our second story is almost a cautionary tale, as elderly creator, Sal Medina lives out his twilight years in a shoddy retirement facility while his creation rakes in the bucks for the corporation that bought him out. But when an unscrupulous orderly gets tired of working for minimum wage, he starts to wonder what that buyout entailed.

THIS GOT DARK

Sometimes, horror tales try to give us stories whose ironic endings tell us about human nature, or stories where evil people reap the whirlwind of their own bad actions. Creepshow… does not. This is a mean little comic, and both stories reflect that dark sensibility. David and Maria Lapham’s first chapter is truly terrifying, slowly building to a nasty ending. David’s art is lovely throughout, making Daphne’s quiet suburban life seem perfectly mundane, using subtle imagery to convey the horror of a tree whose roots (reputedly) made it all the way to Hell. As for the second story, it’s somewhat less successful for me, not because Sal’s fate is gruesome (it is), or because it resembled real comic creators’ lives (it does.) The art is fanciful and cartoony, which works against the central premise for me, as Infra-Red is shown to be a popular superhero franchise in-universe.

BOTTOM LINE: NOT A GLIMMER OF HOPE

As one who considers himself a horror connoisseur, I found Creepshow #2 to be entertaining, dark, and unpleasant, a post-modern take on the old E.C. Comics “preachies,” with one story featuring slightly more successful art and the other providing a more engrossing story, but averaging out to 3.5 out of 5 stars overall. I’m not sure I would repeatedly watch and memorize 156 episodes of it the way I have rewatched The Twilight Zone, but it holds up well against They’re Creeping Up On You and The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill. Just maybe be ready to watch a nice sitcom or something to come down afterward.

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CREEPSHOW #2

70%

70%

Not For The Timid

No lessons imparted, no ironies to mull over, just the blackest of humor and the bleakest of endings. I don't know if I could keep reading it forever, but I enjoyed this one.

• Writing

  7
• Art

  7
• Coloring

  7
• User Ratings (1 Votes)
  0.6