Review: Criminal Macabre Volume 1

Criminal Macabre: The Cal McDonald Casebook Volume 1, is a horror investigation comic collection by Steve Niles.  Cal McDonald, the main character, is a private investigator and a magnet for the weird and supernatural. This volume is a collection of 7 stories on his adventures with mummies, werewolves, vampires, ghouls, zombies and, well, a whole lot more.  He’s Harry Dresden with less magic and more alcohol and guns.

Cal McDonald found a decapitated body in the woods.  He was fascinated.  He was already investigating, trying to figure out what had happened and how.  Being a kid, the cops laughed at him and told him maybe he’d be a real detective one day.  Thing is, weird things kept happening to him throughout his life.  He took up drugs and drinking.  He became a cop.  He was fired when his drug habits were discovered.  Now he’s a private investigator who deals with the creepy and the strange with his sometimes partner, Mo’Lock, the sewer dwelling ghoul.

So, monsters.  The most common monsters in these stories are ghouls, vampires and werewolves.  Vampires and werewolves are vicious hunters who kill and eat their prey.  Luckily, they aren’t the vampires and werewolves of tradition; Cal doesn’t need silver bullets or holy water to fight them off. They die from anything which would kill a normal person.  Ghouls are undead.  They don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep, and heal very quickly.  They, unlike werewolves and vampires, don’t die (sometimes, when in a bad mood, Cal shoots Mo’Lock, just for the hell of it).  At one point, we even see disembodied ghoul heads on spikes, still talking.  Thankfully, they aren’t violent, and frequently drive taxis, or they have some other job that allows them to work odd hours.

Ben Templesmith Other artists Here

The stories are well written and interesting, ranging from fairly straightforward to elaborate and lengthy.  I was a little put off by the constantly changing art styles: Casey Jones does the art for the first story in a very crisp, slightly scratchy style, but the second piece is a straight story with no art.  The third, fourth and fifth stories are illustrated by Ben Templesmith in a very dark style, with the smoothness of watercolor, and the last two are by Kelley Jones who focuses quite a bit on light and shadow while holding a lot of Casey’s crispness.  The constant stylistic shifts were a little distracting and made it much harder to view it as one continuity.  I think Templesmith’s style was the most fitting of the setting, and I would have loved to have seen the whole thing done by him.  Not that the other artists did a poor job; his was just the most fitting.  There’s an art section at the end of the book; however, there isn’t much there that caught my interest.

This was an amazing comic.  Great art, good stories, fun with monsters.  A badass, smart-ass main character with a gruff, grim sense of humor.  Oh and the best part?  This collection is over 500 pages for just $34.99, so it’s a great price.  We’ve been reviewing Dark Horse comics for over a month now, and I think this is the best comic I’ve read thus far.  For the price, you’d be insane not to buy it.

Matthew Bryant, aka Baker Street Holmes, is a big fan of monsters.  Except Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.  He’s just a big zombie.  I mean seriously, get over yourself big guy!  You can follow Baker Street Holmes on Twitter at @BStreetHolmes or e-mail him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.