Comics Review: BASKETFUL OF HEADS by Joe Hill

BASKETFUL OF HEADS written by Joe Hill with art by Leomacs (DC Comics, September 2020) Hardcover, 184 pages. ISBN # 1779502974 / 9781779502971 

Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .

June Branch visits her boyfriend, Liam, on Brody Island for a relaxing last weekend of summer. After an escaped group of criminals breaks into the house that June and Liam are watching, Liam is taken by them. 

June grabs a strange Viking axe and flees from the intruders. When one of the attackers finds her, she swings the axe and takes off his head, which rolls away and begins to babble in terror. For June to uncover the truth, she'll need to hear the facts straight from the mouths of her attackers, with...or without their bodies attached. Collects issues #1-7. 

My Four-Star Review on the Goodreads website .. . . .

     BASKETFUL OF HEADS deserves a ranking within the Top Five Horror Comics Titles written by Joe Hill. I rank it second, right after my favorite Hill comics series - - LOCKE & KEY. 

     This one is a kind of tribute to the darkly funny and often bloody violent horror comics of the EC era, following in the footsteps of CREEPY and EERIE magazines in the '60's and onto the homage films of George Romero like the CREEPSHOW movie and TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE television series, and most recently the CREEPSHOW series on the Shudder streaming channel and AMC network. I also appreciate the references to dad Stephen King's SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. 

     In fact, the story revolves around a band of prisoners who escape from the Shawshank prison during a violent rainstorm that knocks the power out on the island community. They are alleged robbers, but actually it's a ruse to deter attention from the real criminals. The roots of corruption run deep on the island, and some prominent citizens and public servants are involved. 

     Hill manages to work a few plot twists into the conflict before the eventual resolution in Issue #7. I read this in single monthly issues as they were published, and have new appreciation for this work after re-reading them as a single work.

  

     Main character June Branch is a combination of spunk and determination, fending off her assailants with a Norse collector's Viking axe, which turns out to have magical properties. Anyone she decapitates (or cuts in half, or sections) remains alive- - hence the title. 

     The book does get bogged down a little in the middle with exposition, but it's the odd dialogue between June and the talking heads that provides the entertainment and amusement that carried me through to the end. If you've never tried a horror comic before, this would make an excellent starting point.