Tuesday, September 11, 2012

What is this, First Church of Mummy Jesus?

Is that normal? The crucifix-figure wrapped in bandages, I mean; not the evil spirits. I haven't been in a church lately, I wouldn't know...

Today's comic is a quick read with great art, and I pick it up again every so often. And every time I read it, I still have only a vague idea what's going on. From 1999, Feeders, written by Shane Hawks, art by Mike Allred.

At a hospital, a nun with a dark secret meets a young artist, who nearly died in what would probably best be described as an accident in self-flagellation with a crown of thorns. The artist was fixated on his sister, and thought to purge himself of his urges; but instead nearly bled to death. And that's the tip of the iceberg...

The nun is apparently dead, but her ghost is still roaming around doing her nun duties around the hospital, cutting herself, and eating the occasional soul. (In 1999, self-cutting would have been pretty novel...I was sorely tempted to say 'cutting edge,' but no.) Now the artist can see ghostly, zombie-like spirits as well; and then his sister shows up...

Feeders was a tie-in with Hawks' indie film, Eyes to Heaven. I thought I might have seen it ten years ago or so, but I'm not positive on that. This was from around the time that Mike Allred was doing a bunch of other, only tangentially-related to comics, stuff, like his band or the movie Astroesque. (I know I've seen that one, even if it's vague now.) As usual for Allred, though, this is a pretty book; although there are some panels towards the end in a distorted repro style that don't really work for me. There's also a bit of a trick with the black borders as the book goes on, but that doesn't seem to go far enough either. Still; pretty, and I don't think Allred goes into horror as often anymore, so worth flipping through maybe.

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

Mummy Christ huh? So that's where the Unknown Soldier and Negative Man go to pray:)

This is a pretty spooky-looking book. Thanks for posting it.

After all, you can never go wrong with Mike Allred art, never!