I'm a big fan of Gold Key Comics, and always grabbed up just about anything I saw sporting one of their gorgeously painted covers when I was a kid. However, I was not immediately thrilled when I saw that some entity was "brining Gold Key Comics back" in these more modern times.
I mean, revivals aren't always a a good idea. Look at "Atari," for example: for decades, whatever company bought the rights to that name did virtually nothing worthwhile with it. If anything, all they did was damage the legacy of a once-rightly-vaunted name.
Sure, whoever it is that owns those right now (not sure if it's the same people or not) has been doing a lot to make up for all that recently, but that's another story. The story I'm discussing here is that of the new Gold Key Comics company, and specifically about their first published title, "Boris Karloff Gold Key Mysteries."
At the time of this writing, two issues of this new title have come out, and I have them both. In fact, I decided to help fund the Kickstarter for the first issue, and thereby received a copy of the "Gold Edition" of that issue for my efforts.
"BKGKM" is essentially a relaunch of a pre-existing series from the original Gold Key days with the slightly differing title of "Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery." I'll be writing a blog post soon about an issue of that series, as I recently picked up one at the Outer Limits in Waltham, MA.
However, for the purposes of THIS post, I also acquired the second issue of BKGKM at the same shop, as I've added the series to my pull list there...for now.
And that brings us to the supposed "focus" of this post: my impressions of the first two issues of this new series! At last!
Here's the cover to issue #1:
Mine is a little different, with creator credits featured as well as the new Gold Key's logo "Story Never Dies" in the lower left corner, but you get the idea.
It's certainly a nice cover, even if it does fall short of the aforementioned super-cool painted covers from the days of the original Gold Key (or "OGK"). Weird that this revival, with all of the involved parties' professed affection for the OGK era, would opt not to emulate one of the very things for which their source of inspiration was known, eh?
Ah, well: it is a nicely done cover. So, what about the interiors? What about the stories? You know, that which "never dies?"
In short: what lies within is a mixed bag.
Being that I have the "Gold Edition," there is a nice bio of Mr. Karloff at the beginning, as well as an interview his daughter Sarah at the back of the issue. There's some sketches and minimal back-matter concerning the stories themselves, too.
But there I go again, not talking about the stories.
First up, we have "Where House, Part One," written by Michael Conrad with art by Kelly Williams and letters by Kyle Arends. This tale introduces us to the titular House, which apparently teleports around the world and periodically kills those who dare to enter it. Our host Boris apparently lives in the house, but it looks like no one who manages to find him within survives the experience. There's some sort of occult black ops team that's tasked with tracking the Where House down, but they don't seem to be doing a good job of "capturing" the wandering domicile.
It's a good, creepy set-up, and I like the idea of a "framing story" that provides a structure for the delivery of the short horror stories that will make up the anthology format of the series as we go forward.
The first of these new short stories is "My Twin No More," written by Craig Hurd-McKenney, with art by Jok, and letters once more by Kyle Arends. What they've put together here could have been a welcome addition to the series, but it has several flaws that keep it from being a credit to the legacy.
The plot is simple, which is of course, not the problem: an aging movie star takes some time off for a round of cosmetic surgery. Unbeknownst to her, she has a quite literal double whose face is horribly damaged by this process via some sort of supernaturally sympathetic link.
The double takes her vengeance on the star, and then crashes a board meeting at her production company and...murders them? Somehow? It's not made clear.
In fact, not much is made clear at all in this story. There are no narrative captions at all (okay there is ONE but all it says is "Elsewhere"), and even the dialogue is minimal to the point of obfuscating what is even going on. A good deal of my previous synopsis is just guess-work.
The art and lettering are actually pretty great, though. However, for a company whose slogan is "Story Never Dies," I'd expect far better writing that what we have here.
Better luck in the next story? Let's find out!
"Cherry" is written by Steve Orlando, with art by Artyom Trakhanov, colors by Sergey Nazarov, and letters by, you guessed it, Kyle Arends.
Here we have a tale that is far more coherent, and perfectly "on brand" for this type of series, but still somewhat flawed. A famous chef has just lost his genius partner to an unfortunate allergic reaction that's been blamed on a careless line cook. Of course, things are a bit more sinister than that, and when the surviving member of the partnership opens a new restaurant in his departed comrade's "honor," an equally careless accident turns the entire event into a bloodbath.
The art on display here is fantastic. Trakhanov has a style that reminds me of Fabio Moon's, possibly even more abstract, but at no point does the style interfere with the storytelling. The colors are equally innovative and expressive, but again, in a way that adds to the story rather than distracting from it.
The writing is mostly an upgrade from the previous story, too...except for the ending.
It's stated that the sinister surviving chef had the "training" and his "much missed" compatriot had the "imagination." So, then, how did the partner with all the expertise make a "heartbreaking mistake...even a beginner chef would know better than to make"?
Was the "expert" chef lying about his training as well as his innocence? If so, that's not actually stated in the story itself. Without such a detail, the ending, while satisfyingly gruesome and karmic, simply does not make sense.
Oh, well.
As I said, I have added this series to my pull list, so I'll be back soon to discuss whether or not the second issue was an improvement over the first.
