TALES FROM THE CRYPT #1-2 (2007 Papercutz)

Small time comics publisher Papercutz has recently relaunched one of my favorite comic books, TALES FROM THE CRYPT! Sweet, I thought when I first heard about it. I never heard of Papercutz and had to look up on the net. They make comics for tweens like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. 

At first I thought that may be a bad sign. I want some creepy old school horror comics. The I thought, Tales originally was a kids comic. A little more cutting edge than it's contemporaries but still pretty tame by today's standards.

Then again, the TV show was rated R. That's good for a TV show but I usually don't like rated R horror comics. They mostly make them extra dirty and gory for the sake of being extra dirty and gory and come off lame. It also makes me wonder about the perverts who write and draw them.  

With all this debating I bought it anyway. Besides, out of all the junk I read, I'm skipping this? Puh-lease! My hopes were to get a Tales From The Crypt comic to be like the reprints I read.

I opened to first issue to my dismay to find nothing even remotley resembling Wally Wood or Jack Davis's art. Cheap indie artist were picked to draw the return of one of the most legendary comics ever. The first story was about a down on their luck couple who break into the house of an artist who lives next store to steal his gruesome paintings to sell but end up getting killed by the mosters in them. The art looked like it belonged on a Japanese kid's skateboard. The second story about a dude who still lives at home and collects toys that ultimatley also kill him had no style at all. I seriously should have never given up drawing in highschool. The crap I doodled in my notebook looked better than this. The writing delivered somewhat more by included the usual twist endings and somewhat amusing stories but were way padded out too just to fill the forty or so pages in the book.

I didn't give up on the crypt after that disapointment. I bought issue #2. The art in the first story about a evil slum lord at least aped something like the old series. I still haven't read the second story yet. It was drawn by the same skater art guy from the first issue.

Ae they pruposly trying to tank the comic by alienating the tales fans who would by it? Most comic book buyers are probably more desciminate than me and won't give this new Tales another chance.

I'll give Tales one more shot. If it's ugly again I won't buy it.