John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction: Hell #1

John Carpenter’s Tales of Science Fiction: Hell #1

Storm King Comics 2021

Written by David J. Schow

Illustrated by Andres Esparza

Coloured by Sergio Martinez

Lettered by Janice Chiang

In New York City, a massive monster is destroyed by a subway train... and its surviving reptilian companion can speak English. In Columbia, a scientist crawls up from the depths of the Earth, bringing news of a miraculous new mineral power source... and demons below. In Texas, a convicted murderer is spared at the last minute by an international conglomerate... which wants to organize an expedition to the center of the Earth, with him as a guide. Because like the scientist, he's been there. The whole team is headed straight to Hell.

This series is consistently one of the best on stands time and time again thanks to the level of quality storytelling. There are a lot of concepts we’ve seen come from this series and this is far and away one of the more interesting and completely unexpected. Hell has so many different incarnations and iterations depending on culture and region of the world you are in. That Hell is a literal place is something I can get behind, I usually say we’re in hell now and we move on when we pass away, and it engages the reader as well as raises the interest and intrigue factors.

I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented perfectly. There isn’t a moment in the way that this is being told where we can’t see and feel the impact as the story unfolds. Impressive is a massive understatement to how I see things happening here. The character development is sensational and how we see the narration, dialogue and how the characters interact with one another really fleshes them out more completely. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages introducing the characters, the story and this world it’s so incredibly engaging.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story are being shown it creates this beautiful depth and complexity within the story that just keeps wondering. The way that we see everything working together to create thes tory’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is exceptionally well rendered.

The interiors here are absolutely stunning. The linework we see is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create such a high level of quality in the detail work we see is mindbogglingly brilliant! Faces, facial expressions and body language is so strong that it furthers the characterisation beautifully. That we see backgrounds as we do and how they work within the composition within the panels to bring us this depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is phenomenal. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work is divine! How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised for shading, highlights and shadow work show such mastery over how colour works. Also the creativity and imagination that we see really is bloody brilliant as well.

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This is a perfect horror thriller story that is in the works here. From the concept through its execution what we see leaves so much for the reader to think about. The way this engages you and how it makes your imagination run wild with the possibilities of what they present being real is utterly amazing to me. That it’s so matter of fact and not speculative is something that just adds to the certainty of what the characters feel and it is where those complex layers and depth of storytelling occur. It is also what sets this apart and makes this series of arcs must have, read and thrill to stories. You are simply not going to find better storytelling point blank period.