Comics Review: TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE by author Joe Hill and illustrator Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW Publishing, March 2017) Hardcover, 104 pages. ISBN # 1631408194 / 9781631408199 

Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .

Joe Hill's nerve-shredding re-imagining of Tales from the Darkside never made it to TV...but the dead are restless and refuse to stay buried! Adapts the episodes written by Hill and illustrated by Locke & Key co-creator Gabriel Rodriguez! 

Three stories of the macabre and malevolent! One coulda-been, shoulda-been TV epic on paper with pictures that don't move! Step out of the warm, sunlit world you think of as reality and get ready to take a chilling walk... on the DARKSIDE.” 

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

“Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But . . . there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit . . . a Darkside. . . . . .”

 

I read TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE in the original monthly issues. For this mini-series Hill teams up with Rodriguez again, the perfect artist to capture the facial expressions of the characters and bring Hill’s dreamworld to fantastic life.

“SLEEPWALKER”: Issue #1 opens with this bittersweet and dreamlike tale of justice too late to atone for an unfair death.Ziggy is a college student  working summer as a lifeguard who burns the candle at both ends. He parties all night, and then slips the sunglasses on while sitting in the lifeguard chair so he can get some sleep. When someone drowns on his watch, he loses his job and becomes the unwitting catalyst for a “dark side event” with dangerously sleepy consequences. Hill adds an extra twist at the end to keep readers on their toes. FIVE STARS.

“THE BLACK BOX”: This nerve-shredding story spanned two issues and overlaps into the final issue. Brian Newman has suffered from spontaneous seizures since his childhood. Plus, bizarre events accompany these episodes. But Brian has a special otherworldly friend, Big Winner, who sometimes assists him through tight situations. He accepts an offer from Briterside Corporation to implant a chip in his brain to help control matters.

Something goes wrong, of course. Brian does his best to fix things, but . . .

FOUR STARS.

“A WINDOW OPENS”: It seems like Brian’s unfortunate situation has resulted in Darkside events all over the world. Young Joss Waldrop thinks she just ran over a familiar character while texting and driving. Or was it a mailbox?  She takes a babysitting job for an odd couple with even odder children who seem to have smart tablets that can alter reality. FOUR STARS.

  The title of that final story appears to be prophetic, as this series ends just as things seem to be kicking into a higher gear. Too bad Hill’s scripts for a revised TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE television series were never made.

I’d like a chance to see all of them in comics adaptations.

“The Darkside is always there, waiting for us to enter - - waiting to enter us. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.”