Publisher: Action Lab Comics
Writer: Shawn Gabborin
Artist: Michela Da Sacco
Release date: May 2015
Price: $3.99

 

If you think clowns are the most evil things in all creation then can puppets be far behind? I think not, so it’s real easy to believe these vicious little critters are capable of the sort of violent shenanigans we get here.

Anyone with a long memory and a love of British comicbooks may well remember a strip called Dollman where an inventor created a bunch of robot toys that helped him fight crime and used ventriloquism to make them speak. For a comic aimed at kids it was a truly creepy concept and was probably accountable for more childhood traumas than you could shake a stick at.

This is like that only more bloodthirsty. And it’s possession rather than circuitry that bring these sadistic Pinocchio’s to life. Corey is the puppet master here and in order to save his own life, he sends his warped little chums on a killing spree that includes his girlfriend Beth. But Beth is not the sort of gal to go quietly.

This is 3 of 3 so there was probably a lot of backstory in the first two issues explaining how all this came about but with no catch-up blurb at the start you just have to jump right into the action and go with it. Actually, it’s hard to imagine what went into the first two issues because we get a sort of backstory here too and it’s difficult to see how you could pad it out to three issues when it seems more comfortable being the sort of tale you used to get in the old horror anthologies.

Any woman who has ever been betrayed by her boyfriend will stand up and cheer at the final page but for everyone else it’s a diverting enough read. Just be sure you lock all your cuddly toys away before you read it because you really wouldn’t want to put these sort of ideas into their fluffy little heads. Would you?

Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker