Review: 13th Moon - Volume 1
Halloween season is celebrated with this 55-page anthology of seven horror tales from a diverse collection of writers and artists, produced by Phoebe A. Xavier.
Our narrator is the somewhat unconventional Mirror the Time-Bender, a being from some arcane realm who is manifesting as a talking raccoon. Crypt keepers are old hat, it seems...
We kick off with the quirky cartoony Luci & The Doombringers. In south eastern New Jersey a heavy metal festival has just been cancelled due to a series of brutal slayings. A dozen hikers have been mauled by what authorities suspect is a rabid bear. Teen metal band the Doombringers are bemoaning their lost chance at rock stardom until Lude - something of an occult nerd - sees the crime scene pictures in the local paper and identifies the tracks as being not those of any earthly predator...
Could this be the work of a ravenous demon? If so, the solution is clear: fight fire with (infernal) fire. The teen trio proceed to draw a pentagram and summon a demon of their own to combat the carnivorous monster in the woods. What they get is not quite what they expected, however: the daughter of the Devil, Luci, who had been grounded by her diabolical dad for a million years in her room and is more than happy to whup some supernatural ass - with the aid of her black magic guitar.
Patient Xero is a sharp change of tone. A man clears the bodies of a murdered family from their house in the dead of night. But who killed them, and who is the boy by his side... if he is even there at all?
Inexorable continues this darker vein. Gangbanger Volk falls foul of his boss and is thrown into the river, his leg tied to a weight to drag him to his doom. At that moment, however, the gang is attacked by a ravenous mob. Volk frees himself and surfaces, but has he escaped death only to face something worse?
In Dracula - Lord of the Future the infamous vampire has been disintered by scientists on a space station, his organs harvested to provide miracle cures for a variety of diseases. The Count cannot be contained for long, however...
One Way Ticket follows the journey of a man on board a train to Hell. He is more than he appears to be, however; this damed soul has a mysterious hitchhiker with a daring plan to alter the course of events...
In The Damned, Hernandez hires a beast hunter to slay the monster that murdered his family... a monster who turns out to be very close to home.
Esc Pod takes us back into space for the story of Salli, her young son Hemming and Ceph, their robot squid. Salli is fleeing her dysfunctional rich family in a small vessel not equipped with the resources for interplanetary travel. Pregnant with a second child, she has to make a tough decision about who will survive this journey. In the unforgiving void of space, the monsters are not always of the alien variety, and a dark destiny awaits.
This is a vibrant offering with a variety of styles to pique the reader's interest, with artwork that ranges from cute to macabre and stories that take unexpected twists. As the season of darkness begins, there is plenty here to delight, trick and treat.
Zak Webber
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