EDITOR’S NOTE: The last day your local comic shop can place a pre-order for MANIAC OF NEW YORK #1 is Monday, January 11. If you’d like to get your personal copy, give them a pre-order now to ensure that you receive it. Also, if you like the story please consider pre-ordering the remaining issues of the mini-series from your comic shop. It’s always a difficult decision for them to decide how many copies to bring into the store of Issue #2 and later. Help them out, and at the same time guarantee for yourself that you’ll get the issues.
MANIAC OF NEW YORK #1 (Aftershock Comics, release date February 3) Writer: Eliott Kalan. Artist: Andrea Mutti.
“He’s not a criminal. He’s a punishment being visited on the city. Here to make our lives Hell, ’til we clean up our acts. . . . How you gonna solve a case of divine wrath?” . . . . detective Zelda Pettibone
This is a slasher film on colorful comics paper with a big difference.
Creator Eliott Kalan (writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Mystery Science Theater 3000)- - - was so unhappy with the film treatment of FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN that he decided to do something about it.
Fresh off his work on VLAD DRACUL for Scout Comics, artist Andrea Mutti (Hellblazer) brings his expressive painted style to the slasher’s blood red city-wide canvas of lurid color.
In MANIAC OF NEW YORK, Harry the Maniac (in obligatory hockey mask, machete in hand) doesn’t just walk the streets for fifteen minutes or so - - it goes on for years.
Harry's nocturnal activities (and daytime!) dominate the streets so much that everyone knows him by name. Never caught, his random massacres occur year after year, so often that the local television news station gives updates on his activities as part of the weather and traffic report. The residents are numb to the constant barrage of bad news and become apathetic. Just another day in the Big Apple.
The Mayor of NYC appointed a Maniac Task Force several years ago, with a revolving door of directors who can’t get the case solved. By this time, the casualty count is up to 493 murders. The newest director, Gina Greene, is different. She volunteered for the seemingly dead-end job because it’s personal for her. A potential boyfriend was Harry’s first victim. She’s never forgotten.
Her first recruit to the Task Force is rough and ready (but cynical) detective Zelda Pettibone, who earned the nickname Snitch Bitch for trying to do the right thing.
No sooner do they get acquainted then news arrives of the next siting of Harry The Maniac - - aboard the brand new automated subway train. There are 221 people riding the train, who probably won’t make it home tonight. Just so we don’t think the passengers are simply props, Kalan adds some insight into a struggling passenger’s plight trying to eke out a living in a high-rent neighborhood and provides a little social commentary.
Buckle up, people. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Rating: FOUR out of a possible FIVE STARS.
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