YET Another Comic Geek Update...

Dark Horse's reboot of CREEPY reaches it's 6th issue, and the truly CREEPY cover art represents a tale titled 'Commedia Dell'Morte,' which turned out to be the best story of the issue (no easy feat considering the opening horror/western is written by the legendary Joe R. Lansdale).  Hats off to author Christopher A. Taylor for one of the finest stories in all of this new run (artist Jason Shawn Alexander--who also did the cover--gets the clown-terror willies going quite well, too).  Kevin Ferrara's pencils look great in 'The Wreck,' despite Alice Henderson's familiar story line.  This issue's 'Loathsome Lore' section deals with Hitler's kinky niece and the woman the ILSA films were based on, and for some reason the editors decided to end this installment with a reprint from an old issue of EERIE (go figure).  Dark Horse continues to deliver the fun for those who miss the days of 60s/70s-era horror comics.

The second and final of the two-issue CONAN: ISLAND OF NO RETURN turned out to be a fantastic, classic-style Conan story, but as I mentioned in my last Comic Geek Update, Bart Sears' artwork is too sloppy and comical for such a finely written tale (PLEASE keep this guy away from our favorite Cimmerian, Dark Horse peoples!).  Stjepan Sejic's cover art is beautiful, and this issue's story would've looked much better had he rendered the extreme violence and cave creature brawl.  Looking forward to the regular CONAN: ROAD OF KINGS to pick up next month after a two month hiatus (and keeping my fingers crossed the long-awaited CONAN film doesn't suck!).

Superman helps Constantine get closer to finding the whereabouts of the Swamp Thing in the second issue of DC's three-issue mini-series, BRIGHTEST DAY AFTERMATH: THE SEARCH FOR SWAMP THING.  The ending promises a decent final installment in the next issue, but I'm hoping DC stops with the DARKEST NIGHT/BRIGHTEST DAY thing...it ran its course and this short post-series is apparently just trying to keep a good thing going.  DC: Quit while you're ahead!

iZOMBIE issues 15 and 16 are basically the same thing--but that's not to rag them.  Gwen and her monster-hunting boyfriend finally rescue the were-terrier from a cave that's full of zombies, and a couple of building side-plots with Gwen's ghost and vampire friends fill in the background quite nicely.  I wasn't crazy about a four-paged mini-story started a couple issues ago called THE DEAD PRESIDENTS, but in these two issues they're actually a part of the main iZombie story.  As long as Vertigo keeps this up I'll have no problem with it (they even used one of the DEAD PRESIDENT characters for issue 15's cover--see above).  Issue 16 ends on a doozy that'll have zombie (and Gwen) fans drooling.  Been loving this series since the first issue and it shows NO signs of slowing down.