Publisher: Jason Crawley
Artists: Mike Hoffman, Juan Carlos Abraldes Rendo, Jeff Austin, Carlos Valenzuela, Christian Andres Baez, Rob Moran, Emanuel Derna, Salvador Lopez
Writers: Jason ‘The Bloke’ Crawley, Von Crawl Hoff, Alex Ogalla
Cover Art: Mike Hoffman (Front), Juan Carlos Abraldes Rendo (Back)
Editor: Jason Crawley
Editorial Assistance and Lettering: Keith Braun
Price: $8.95
Release Date: OUT NOW!
In an early issue of Swamp Thing, Alan Moore wrote something along the lines of ‘it is a green world’, except, as Moore pointed out, it never really is and Moore’s ‘green world’ quickly turned red. It is, I feel, much the same with independent comic book publishers. With the comic book industry monoliths sucking up an easily lead, easily manipulated audience; which figures because the more bangs a comic book company provide, in all senses of the word, the more dollars fill the coffers. And that is a very, very green world.
Except, it is very red one too, for those independent publishers, the small publisher with an equally excellent product, choked off from the market place by the re-launched, the re-imagined, the re-pushed, reborn, reborn again, endless line of marketing, of style over substance. Like an endless treadmill everyone buys into because consumer indifference seems to be at an all-time high in 2016.
Which brings me to Bloke’s Terrible Tomb of Terror #14, not the lame comic book by numbers flooding the market place at the moment, with cliché driven superhero and super team antics which, well for me anyway, supply a need that is engineered and marketed but not not really there. It is artificial, the Matrix of the comic book world and every comic books fans seems to buy directly into like crack cocaine.
But here is an independent publisher, a veritable one-man band – no bad thing in this case either – in Jason Crawley, offering something off the mainstream, something to invest in rather than consume. And there’s the thing, the more mainstream comic book industry is not that dissimilar to the fast food industry, cranking out the product like so many burgers, so many Happy Meals. Consumed, discarded and forgotten. And on to the next one.
The problem is the gourmet menu, the more engaging and challenging, the non-mainstream – only non-mainstream because it does not have a big, impressive publisher – the Bloke’s Terrible Tomb of Terror #14, are too often ignored by comic book readers.
And it is not right. This horror anthology title has more going for it than a slew of caped and spandexed superheroes, strutting around endless overdrawn and overwritten pages, self-referencing and devouring their own superhero history for the sake of sales and a movie franchise. That’s not comic books, that’s prostitution.
So look, enough of me and my rant, pick up a copy of Bloke’s Terrible Tomb of Terror #14 from the following places and prepare to live outside The Matrix and make this particular Hooker, happy:
Amazon www.amazon.com/Blokes-Terrible-Tomb-Of-Terror/dp/1533138001
Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blokes-Terrible-Tomb-Terror-14/dp/1533138001
https://www.etsy.com/listing/295127741/pdf-download-issue-14?ref=shop_home_active_1
Direct from the Bloke through the BlokesTomb Etsy shop Mag https://www.etsy.com/listing/295126787/issue-14-blokes-terrible-tomb-of-terror?ref=shop_home_active_2 PDF Download
Review: Steve Hooker