A comiXologist Recommends:
Mike Isenberg recommends Nightbreed #1
Not too long ago a co-worker of mine, knowing my taste for weird horror flicks, recommended that I check out Clive Barker’s 1990 film Nightbreed. Having enjoyed Barker’s other creations (Hellraiser, Lord of Illusions, and Candyman), I promptly put it on my “to watch” list and then forgot about it.
Fast forward a few months, I notice that BOOM! is soliciting Nightbreed as an upcoming comic series. Reminded of my co-worker’s recommendation, I finally tracked down the film and gave it a watch.
It’s pretty great. Supernatural horror clearly stamped with Clive Barker’s particular strain of wonderful weirdness. Without giving too much away, the story features a secret, subterranean city called Midian, populated by supernatural freaks and outcasts known as the Nightbreed, all of whom have sworn off any contact with the natural world. The film is filled with colorful characters, imaginative designs, and a relatable underdog story.
Like Hellraiser before it, Nightbreed presents the surface of a vibrant mythology. But whereas Hellraiser has had numerous sequels to explore the nature of the Cenobites and their puzzle box, the Nightbreed have only the one film to tell their story.
Enter writer Marc Andreyko and artist Piotr Kowalski, to continue the story in comic book form, with assistance from Barker himself.
Issue #1 starts off the new series with a peek into present-day Midian, before delving into the Nightbreed’s past. In the swamps of 1857 Louisiana a couple flees a lynch-mob only to have one of the Nightbreed intervene, though perhaps not in a way they would have liked. And in 1945 Boston a senator visits a house of ill-repute that caters to some very particular tastes.
The story being told is all new, so you don’t have to have seen the movie, although some knowledge of the basic premise (i.e. Midian is a secret city, home to outcast monsters known as Nightbreed) does help. The book is tense and mysterious, and definitely worth checking out. For fans of the movie, fans of Clive Barker, or fans of weird horror in general, I can absolutely recommend this book.
For fans of: horror
Mike Isenberg is an Associate Production Coordinator at comiXology, and the co-writer of First Law Of Mad Science. He lives in Harlem with his cats, Tesla and Edison
