RAVENOUS #1

Ravenous Forevermore

By Kurt Amacker     June 22, 2005

RAVENOUS is one of those books you probably haven't heard about. It's sad that quality alone doesn't dictate sales. If that were the case, this would be a bestseller with a movie on the way. Dawn Brown adapts and reworks several of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories into a murder mystery. RAVENOUS tells of the Good Fortunate Police Department as they track a killer that slices his victims in half a la THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM. Detective Mason a poetic, fanciful young officer narrates the investigation in long prose-poetry passages that accompany the dialogue. A childhood vision of a monster called the Red Death still lingers in his mind. When the creature manifests itself at the home of his fellow officer and crush, Catherine, Mason realizes his monster may have escaped his mind and be the same killer troubling the town. Mason's unsure just how responsible he may be for the killings and those that follow, and he struggles with his guilt until the climactic confrontation with his vision at the Good Fortune Masquerade Ball.

RAVENOUS includes all of the Poe stories that inspired it as an appendix. Included are THE TELL-TALE HEART, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, WILLIAM WILSON, and THE RAVEN. I hadn't read Poe in many years and I read all of the stories before beginning RAVENOUS. In one of those "no sh-t, huh?" moments, I recalled and realized Poe's consummate skill as a writer and can't question Brown's inspiration. It's good stuff, and a comic that "remixes" (if you'll forgive the term) Poe's work into a new story that's lovingly evocative of his work is brilliant.

Brown's dialogue works fine, but Mason's voiceover is a bit disjointed. There are times when it briefly settles into a rhyme-scheme and the mind accepts that it's reading poetry, and then it abruptly shifts to a prose narrative. It's a little annoying, but it doesn't ruin RAVENOUS. The art is more consistent and a pleasure to see. The bleak, washed-out colors fit the story well and compliment Brown's nightmarish visions of murder and childhood horrors come to life.

By all means, read RAVENOUS. If you like Poe, you'll love this. And if you're unfamiliar with him, you can read the very stories that inspired this morbid little tale. So, you have no excuse.

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