Writers / Pencillers: Eric Powell, James Harren, Becky Cloonan, Mike Mignola / Colour Artist: Dave Stewart / Letterer: Comicraft / HC / Dark Horse Comics
Review by Paul Dunne
8th April 2024 (Released 20th December 2023)
The Pitch: Four of the top creators in comics gather to continue the Victorian tradition of ghost stories on Christmas Eve. Four tales of the bizarre and terrifying to keep you company on the cold yule night. A unique approach to the ghost story format where the creators themselves become part of the story in this deluxe edition hardcover designed by the award-winning Phil Balsman.
Christmas and ghosts go together like Rudolph and Santa. It's a Grand tradition, one that is added to each year, whether it's the BBC or the BFI releasing spectral tales, or comics publishers adding to a growing library of ghostly Fables. This isn't Dark Horse's first rodeo but it is a little different. Sure, it's an oddly sized premium book, they've done that before. And those creators sure seem familiar. But this year, the reigns are held by one Master Eric Powell, who inserts himself, Mignola, Cloonan, and Herren into the story, not for meta-commentary, but instead to root you in a particular type of fiction.
There are Ghosts here, not just the ones in the stories or Peter Straub, whom Powell discusses his love for in the book's introduction, but haunting the book's very premise, most certainly are William Hope Hodgdon's Carnacki books, which also always began with friends of the titular ghost finder meeting at his house in Chelsea to hear of his latest ghastly exploits. Powell has fun crafting fake histories for his three pals, including a touch of Lovecraftian cosmic horror waiting in the wings for James Herren! And Powell doesn't disappoint, creating a story for Herren's art that is part Love craft, part Poe what with its splashes of the Tell-Tale Heart. It's Herren's art that offers the real surprise as it doesn't resemble too closely other works, such as his previous Mignola-verse books, or even his own monster book, Ultramega. The style here is smoother, cleaner, and of all the stories, is probably the most cartoon-esque in its execution. Not a bad thing since Becky Cloonan has something altogether darker up her black lace sleeve...
Cloonan's story is based on actual myth (if that's not a contradiction in terms), and plays lightly on the sexuality to be found in hers and Tula Lotay's recent Somna as a soldier who keeps a Kelpie fed wanders into a woman's home. Cloonan's pencils are clean, and her storytelling is expertly paced. There's a love of a certain period that comes through, as so much of her non-big two work is pre-industrial
Mignola gives us an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem, The Jaberwock and does it justice, visualising as only he could with solid blacks and architecture that's part ancient Celt and part Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Powell's hand extends beyond writing Herren's entry to the beautifully crafted and slyly funny prologue, Epilogue and dividing pieces within the stories, as well as the final story. His is a story of upper-class Victorian-era woe that speaks to the colonial hunger and entitlement the British ruling class revelled in.
Powell's beautiful pencil work, is seemingly all the more gorgeous for being or appearing to be un-inked. It creates the particular sense of aged illustrated fiction that just doesn't exist anymore but that you might find in a dusty bookshop somewhere in London, which connects you back to that particular type of fiction, a type that Powell and his co-creators share the love of. That's the real treat in this book, the joy it's been created with.
One can imagine that even with four consummate professionals working on it, this may have been a bear to edit. Running through the book, alongside its joy, is a competitive meanness that extends to four 'friends' trying to outdo each other right to the bitter end. This book manages to be everything you might want from a Christmas horror, being creepy, fun, grim, and bitter, but never hateful. It respects an audience that is knowledgeable of Victoria ghost stories or indeed anyone who feels the winter months are inherently spooky. Is it wrong for me to want these same guys to get together for next Halloween and Christmas, too? If they all survive, that is...
