Type: four-part miniseries
Author: Steve Niles
Draughtsman: Breehn Burns
Publishing House: Star Comics
Format: stapled
Price: 3.00 Euro (published inside Star Magazine New)
A television meteorologist named Aleister Green has a passion for B-horror films and manages to get a chance to do a late-night review of his beloved films, thus becoming Aleister Arcane. The show is presented as a kind of Uncle Tibia, and in between the films some truculent sketches are presented. Needless to say, the parents of the children who were watching the films riot, and they manage to shut down the program: it is the beginning of the end for Aleister. His wife falls ill and dies of stress, and he retires, alone, to a manor house just outside the town of Jackson (Oklahoma).
One Halloween night a small group of kids knocks on his door for classic trick-or-treating and thus begins a friendship between Aleister and the kids that revitalizes the poor old man who shows the kids some of his tricks and starts broadcasting some movies in his house; until a bad flu debilitates him and although the kids secretly look after him he eventually dies. But Aleister's death does not seem to be the end of everything: “...Jackson, Oklahoma, would pay dearly for his sins.”.
This miniseries by Niles is truly a little gem that slips by as fast as the wind, the drawings “painted” by Burns, accompany an engaging read giving the work a perfect spooky atmosphere especially after what is unleashed with Aleister's death. The coloring of the plates is superb, and the red spots of blood that stand out on the blade of a hatchet wandering in the dark are really a beautiful scenic shot.
Content-wise, the work goes against those who seek to combat prejudices about the world of horror, against those who blame films in the genre for their children's mental deviations.
The plot does not stand out for originality but the narrative is convincing if Niles had stretched it out a little longer it surely would have stood out more in the eyes of the public; to be rewarded is the effort of Star Comics, which with its Star Magazine New is presenting some truly remarkable stories from the American scene. Recommended, both for the price and for the other stories.
Reviewed by Andrea Ledda
