Crowd Funded Comic Book Review: Graveyard Shift

STORY

Graveyard Shift is the second crowd funded book that I’m reviewing. I’ve chosen to do these unsolicited reviews (publishers send us books for review) as these are comics I’ve put my own money into and so it seems just and fair that I be allowed to review them.

The premise of Graveyard Shift is a fun one. Its sort of a what if the Universal Monsters were updated into something akin to a modern comic superhero team. That idea combined with the amazing artwork of Mail was enough of a hook alone to get me to back the project. Its high concept for sure but it doesn’t reach the heights it could have. Malin is very clearly a man who grew up loving the Image comics of the 90’s. Its evident in both the style of the story and the artwork within this volume. Storywise three humans are transformed against their will into analogues of Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster and the Bride of Frankensteim and become known as Professor Blood, The Monster and The Bride to the world at large.

Initially you are quite sympathetic to their plight as the reanimation research that led to them becoming creatures of the night was forced upon each of them and a side effect of their condition is that they are filled with bloodlust and an apparent need to consume either flesh or blood. But while the struggle to maintain a certain level of humanity is mentioned by the narrator Blood and by the Bride in combat it is evident that no one is really trying all that hard not to be a monster. You see the villain of the piece, normally a heroic staple of this particular genre, takes the Presidency based on his platform of “No more monsters”“ or heroes fail to be heroic at all. In an assault on a congress that has been filled with politicians made over into monsters by our arch villain the team proves itself more than willing to slaughter civilian reporters with no regret as they wage war on the corrupted capitol. The empathy I’d formerely had for these characters instantly evaporates in the face of this carnage. Other monstrous heroes such as Spawn, Swamp Thing and even Werewolf by Night largely manage to spare the innocent in the pages of their comics which allows one to maintain a level of empathy with such gruesome protagonists and yet here the authors chose to go a route which makes the Graveyard Shift less relatable than an anti-hero like Tim Vigil’s Faust.

The story bounces between flashbacks and present day (as well as scene to scene) with a jarring lack of transitions that had me reading the book twice to make sure I fully grasped what was going on. The story isn’t bad per se, its relatively simple but the way its been told can be convuluted leading to some confusion.

ART

The art is for the most part stellar and you can tell Malin really put his all into it and the same can be said for George’s colors. Every panel seems to leap of the page in a spectacular fashion. The characters, props and set pieces all look really freaking cool. He’s good in a Jum Lee sort of way, its comic art on steroids! However Malin can end up doing really cluttered pages which interfere with the storytelling, leaving one to look over the page carefully to make sure they grasp it properly.

LETTERS

The lettering is handled by Weathers like a champ! It leads the eye around sometime even better than the artwork does.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is Image 2.0 IMO. Light on story, heavy on art. It’s good enough for me to overlook the flaws for book 2 but it could have been put together much better in my assessment. Still if you are looking for something that is gloriously 90s in the present day look no further. 3 out of 5!

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REVIEW: GRAVEYARD SHIFT

Plot: Jon Malin/ Mark Poulton
Writer:Â Mark Poulton
Art:Â Jon Malin
Colors:Â Anthony George
Letters:Â Eric Weathers