D. Emerson Eddy of The Comics Beat reminded me of a great little series the other day with one of their, "Classic Comic Compendium," articles. It was, "Hellspawn." Published by Image, it was an out-of-continuity series that hard Brian Michael Bendis writing and Ashely Wood providing art before Steve Niles took over writing and Ben Templesmith provided illustrations to close the 16 issue run out. It's creepy, ominous, and while I'm a big fan of Niles and Templesmith, I'm a huge fan of Wood's art and when Bendis' writing is on, it is good. This is an example of some quality Bendis storytelling.
I've always said I enjoy, "Spawn," comics the most when Todd McFarlane isn't writing them. This isn't meant as an outright insult to McFarlane either. McFaralne is an incredible artist and has some stellar ideas. I just don't think his writing/scripting is the absolute best. When other people take his ideas and run with them, however, the result is generally awesome. Whether it is how David Michelinie and McFarlane gave us Venom or that the, "Toddfather," and his Spawn helped create some cool stories when other folks wrote the character--such as, "Hellspawn," and other works (Alan Moore of all people kind of was slumming but gave us some interesting yarns).
When McFarlane is mainly doing the art and contributing ideas as opposed to full-on scripting, the results can be pretty snazzy. Hence, I enjoy the character of Spawn the most somewhat paradoxically when McFarlane isn't writing him. "Hellspawn," with its demonic creatures, scary tone, and great dialogue stands as a prime example of that assertion. "Hellspawn," is going to have a new collected edition coming out in March of 2025. I look forward to it and hope that this new printing helps other folks discover a fantastic piece of work.
No comments:
Post a Comment