Review: House of Gold and Bones #3

I’ve had a hate-love relationship with House of Gold and Bones by Corey Taylor and Richard Clark so far. That is to say I hated the first issue and loved the second one. While the first issue was stilted and seemed indicative of the lack of experience one might expect from a singer-turned-comic-book-artist, the second issue really picked up its stride and matched the passion with quality. But what about the third issue? Does it continue riding the wave of momentum from the last issue, or does it fall into its previous bad habits? Read on to find out.

When we last left our protagonist, there were somewhere between one and eighty thousand* questions that needed to be answered about who Zero is, the Conflagration, and what in the world is actually happening (*all numbers approximate). This issue is titled “The Answers”, but the answers given actually raise far more questions than I had after the last issue, and with only one issue remaining, that’s more than a little worrisome.

This is going to be my shortest review in a while because there’s nothing I can talk about here that doesn’t give something away. The opening gives us an idea of how he got to this place, and the closing supposedly tells us what that place is, though what in the world it actually means is something I have yet to grasp despite re-reading it multiple times. It’s something so out there as a concept that I wonder if Corey Taylor just processes the world differently than I or anyone else I know does. My biggest worry for the final issue is that he deems the concepts introduced so far to be far more intuitive than they actually are, which would be problematic to say the least.

I can talk about the art without spoiling anything, so let’s do that. Like I mentioned in previous reviews, Richard Clark still has a rather large problem with human faces. They just never look quite right, and that’s made more obvious by the opening sequence of this issue. That said, the action sequences here are really well done, and some of the darker elements are handled quite well. It’s still only okay in my book, but he does seem to be improving ever so slightly from issue to issue, for what that’s worth.

House of Gold and Bones #3 would be a great issue in a five-issue miniseries. Unfortunately, this is a four-issue miniseries, and I don’t see any way that Taylor and Clark can answer all the questions presented so far while still having time for proper pacing and development. My preliminary guess is that the final issue will be a rushed mess. If you were in on the series before, you should drop the $3.99 to get this comic, since it is a good effort that advances the story in important and necessary ways. That said, this is not the issue that will change your mind if you were out on it before, and if you were considering starting now, I’d avoid dropping $12 to pick up the miniseries so far until we see how it’s all going to end.

Chase Wassenar, aka MaristPlayBoy, is the Lead Editor and Founder of the Red Shirt Crew. He’s never been more nervous about the ending of a miniseries in his life. And that’s saying something. Not sure what, but it is something. You can read his other articles at ToyTMA, follow him on Twitter at @RedShirtCrew or email him at theredshirtcrew@gmail.com.

Review: House of Gold and Bones #2

Well, when I reviewed last month’s House of Gold and Bones #1, I was genuinely sad to have not enjoyed it. Corey Taylor is a talented musician for a band I really like that seemed really passionate about making a successful comic book, and the passion was all over the pages. Unfortunately, so was the constant narration, unsatisfactory art, and unending slew of questions with no satisfactory answers was also all over those pages. I was ready to write the series off as a misguided first effort, but the passion he had for the book led me to decide it was worth giving this book another shot. And man am I glad I did! Click the link to see why I found this book to be such a marked improvement over the previous issue.

When we last left our hero(?), Zero, he was being chased by a bunch of dark forces screaming, “RU486”. Throughout the issue, he must try to escape these dark forces using his cunning and strength. He also works hard trying to decipher what is going on in this strange world in which he now finds himself, while also struggling to remember how he got there in the first place. But he can’t focus on that for too long, because the dark forces will not stop coming for him.

In the last review, I spent a lot of time focusing on the negatives of the comic, mostly because they simply overpowered anything positive I had to say on it. That overwhelming narration slowed everything to a crawl, and the protagonist simply wasn’t an interesting enough character in his own right. He seemed empty, almost like he was supposed to act as an audience surrogate, which is never a good idea in comics. In this issue, though, we see him actually display character. Instead of Zero just being some guy the comic happens to follow as things happen around him, he displays actual initiative in this issue. He stands up against the dark forces despite being completely outmatched, and he makes decisions against people like Adam (hurray for Biblical allusions!). This goes a long way towards making him more likable as a character in my eyes, and I found myself rooting for him in a way I simply didn’t in the first issue.

There were three main issues I had with the last comic, and all three have been rectified here, at least to some extent. The art is the one with which I still have the most issues, but I think it’s really limited to the drawing of the protagonist and Adam, who’s being overplayed as evil so much that we actually see him in a knockoff of an SS uniform here. The problem with the human characters presented is one of facial structure. They all end up having too much forehead, and characters without facial hair look equally off on the lower half of their face. Perhaps this is a me thing, but at the very least, what was a major issue in the last comic is now merely a minor one, and it shouldn’t get in the way of you buying this comic.

The biggest issue I had was the constant narration, which completely decimated the pacing. This has been fixed almost entirely through the introduction of Peckinpah, a side character that seems to want to help Zero. Well, maybe help is the wrong word, as any time a character in a world in which no one should be trusted is portrayed as kind I immediately get suspicious, but at the very least, he wants to help Zero uncover the mysteries of the world around him. Because the story is presented in mostly dialogue instead of an overlong monologue, there’s a lot more characterization presented, and the pace picks up quite nicely, slowing just enough so the reader can grasp what’s going on without bringing everything to a crawl. The material was always well-written, but now that it’s matching the medium in which its trying to tell the story, you can honestly enjoy it.

The final problem was an overabundance of mysteries to the point of frustration. A good creepy comic keeps things tense and keeps you guessing until the very end, but it also drops hints now and then while presenting the reader with an idea of what’s going on so they’re not completely lost and confused. It’s a tough balance to walk, and the first issue was definitely too far on the latter side of things. This issue, however, was far more balanced, giving a general idea of what the upcoming conflagration is (though, spoiler alert, a dictionary search tells me it’s not going to be sunshine and rainbows) while still keeping it’s ultimate purpose and Zero’s role in all this a mystery. It gives us enough reasons to care without spoiling it all for us, and that balance makes this a very compelling comic.

As much as I enjoyed this issue, I’m going to have to give it a conditional recommendation for its $3.99 cover price because of how vastly different in quality I found this issue to be compared to the first one. I honestly think you could drop the first issue and just pick it up here if the series interests you and/or you’re a big Stone Sour fan, but I can’t unconditionally recommend this given the potential for it to go off rails again. If the next issue is as good as this one, I’ll be able to bump both to a definite recommendation. For now, I’d hold off for one more issue to see where this is going. That said, this issue is a great sign of things to come, so here’s hoping it continues down this path.

Chase Wassenar, aka MaristPlayBoy, is the Lead Editor and Founder of the Red Shirt Crew. He’s really happy this issue worked out far better than the last one, and he definitely hopes this is the sign of a trend. You can read his other articles at ToyTMA, follow him on Twitter at @RedShirtCrew or email him at theredshirtcrew@gmail.com.

Review: House of Gold and Bones #1

This is actually the worst kind of review to write. I love writing gushing reviews of the comics I love most and going into just what makes them special to me. I even enjoy tearing apart comics that lack the time and effort necessary to make them work, as those artists deserve to be called out for such behaviour. Sadly, this review isn’t either of those. This is a guy putting all he has into a script that, sadly, just doesn’t come together well. Corey Taylor’s comics debut House of Gold and Bones #1 has all the passion and creativity in the world, but sadly, it doesn’t work.
For those of you who don’t know, Corey Taylor was the lead singer of Slipknot, and is currently the lead singer of Stone Sour, an awesome hard radio rock band that you should totally be listening to. In fact, you may have noticed this comic series shares the same name as their latest album, a two part album released that is legitimately great stuff and you should totally go buy right now. Both parts. I’m on my fourth listen through at the moment of writing, and I’m not even a guy that does that.

But enough delaying the inevitable: this comic is supposed to be a “visual representation” of the album, and at first, it succeeds quite well. Our protagonist, just known as “Zero” for the moment (he has amnesia, so he doesn’t remember his real name) is dropped into a strange world of which he has no memory or understanding, and is being chased by some dark, sinister forces that are truly menacing in the way they are presented: a dark blur with a creepy hand reaching out to grab him. He escapes into a nondescript block of a house…and the whole comic falls apart.

There are three major problems with this comic. The first is the art done by Richard Clark. It’s not that everything he does is bad; I’ve already praised the dark forces with the creepy hand, after all. And the environments are all equally well done, if a little more subdued than they probably should be given the atmosphere of the writing. The problem is in his depiction of the actual characters. “Zero” just looks…off. I can’t really describe it, but I get a very ‘uncanny valley’ feeling whenever I look at his face. Not to mention the facial expressions rarely match the emotion the character is portraying at the time to a point that it stands out and detracts from the scene. This is especially true of the anti-hero presented, who goes from looking sinister and menacing to looking downright silly at times. It’s a true shame, as a brilliant artist may have been able to save the other problems.

The second issue is the constant narration the main character gives us. We get every single thought that passes through the guy’s head, and not for the better. Remember my review of B.P.R.D. Vampire #1? That comic had eight pages of no words whatsoever to set a rather creepy ambience that sucked you immediately into the comic. At the time, I wondered if it was perhaps a bit slow, but I take it back. It keeps things running at a solid pace. The constant narration slows down the pace in a painful way, and often, it tells us things that should already be clear through the art itself. By having to read the narration (which can feel amateurish at times), you lose all sense of tension in the creepier moments, as you’re constantly being slowed down and pulled out of the moment. In a perfect world, there should be about 1/3 of the narration present in this comic. Sadly, this is not a perfect world.

I get why Taylor chose to write it this way, however. This comic throws a lot of weird concepts out there to set the stage, probably too much. I had to reread the comic thrice before I could figure out exactly what was going on, and that’s accepting that a lot of the book is purposefully shrouded in mystery. It’s a lot easier to understand if you listen to the album, actually, as the story plays out quite well if you listen to the story of the music and combine the two to figure out what’s going on (which I guess makes it a success as visual representation of the album, so yay?). But this is a comic, and it should be able to stand on its own as one. And this sadly just doesn’t work.

I hate writing reviews for this, as I really respect Corey Taylor’s passion behind the piece. The effort and passion he brought to this project is clear. Sadly, so is the fact that he’s new to this. The narration, clunky dialogue, and subpar art bring what could have been a great comic down to one I can’t recommend for the $3.99 cover price. I’ll keep an eye on this, and if the passion turns into progress, I’ll let you all know. But for now, just buy the albums instead. Those are both great, at least.

Chase Wassenar, aka MaristPlayBoy, is the Lead Editor and Founder of the Red Shirt Crew. He really wanted to enjoy this comic, and he’s genuinely sad he didn’t. He’s holding out hope for #2 though. You can read his other articles at ToyTMA,  follow him on Twitter at @RedShirtCrew or email him at theredshirtcrew@gmail.com.