Hack/Slash: Back to School
Having killed her own mother, who had become a Slasher, Hack wants to become a Slasher hunter. After a Slasher attack at a fast food place she was eating in, with her new, half human, half monster, companion, Vlad, she meets Darla, the teacher/creator of a school for young women who wants to become Slasher hunters and she instantly joins. On her first missions she goes with two other girls from the school, Boo and Sam and after seeing a gamer being cut in half and hang, they get sucked, by a portal on the pc, inside the game frog boy and they see its creator kill himself, due to his ungrateful fanbase. In the second case they investigate a strip club, where the new girls go in, but never get out and in the third and final case of this comic, a Slasher that had been killing happy families all around America comes to the school and the girls need to protect themselves.
This is my first Hack/Slash read and I decided to finally check one of these out because it's written and drawn by Zoe Thorogood, who's work I really admire. I'm really glad I decided to read this, because now I want to also read the original Hack/Slash stories, which wouldn't have grabbed my attention otherwise. Right from the first few pages this was way more interesting and violent than I expected, with beheadings of children taking place in the very first issue of the series. Now if that's not a great attention grabber I don't know what is! In general this whole comic was very fun, full of interesting characters and a lot of great action. At the same time though, Zoe Thorogood is able to explore some darker themes as well. The part with the creator of Frog Boy killing himself, because his fans never cared about him and just demanded more and more of his work is a simple yet interesting commentary on how fans don't really care about the artists, they just want them to create more and more from what they like. Earlier in the comic we can also see a splash page that clearly pays a tribute to the incredible manga "Chainsaw Man", so I can't help but to think about how a lot of the manga creators in Japan have to hide their identities, because their own fans are likely to be a threat to their lives, if they don't continue certain storylines in the way they want to or if they take too long to release new chapters. Besides this very interesting commentary, Zoe also explores trauma and how different people deal with it or suppress it. The most interesting example of this, from this comic, is Boo, who overly-sexualizes herself and obsessed about boys, in order to stay in this small bubble in her mind and avoid thinking about her tragic past. Furthermore, the comic has very nice narration, from Hack's diary and the ending was way more dramatic and tragic than I expected from such a fun comic, although I should've probably seen that coming.
Zoe Thorogood's artwork in this comic was gorgeous as always. The action scenes are dynamic and look awesome, the character designs are unique and fun and all the gore looks disturbing yet beautiful. In general I'm a big fan of her art style, so I really enjoyed all the artwork. If I had one complaint about it though, it'd be that some times she's trying to fit too many panels in one page, making it feel a bit crammed.
Overall, this was a very fun read, with a lot of funny moments and some extremely dramatic ones that inspired me to read more Hack/Slash.
9/10