Jan 25, 20213 min read

Indie Comic Review: Horror Streetz #2

Previously…

Last time I reviewed a horror comic called NightFall about a Teenage Werewolf and his clan. So I decided to review Jeff Carol’s second Horror Streetz anthology, a smorgasbord of culturally relevant horror. Which culture you may ask? Well, American of course, in all of its history of racial tension and hysteria. So let’s dive in, but first…

Situation

The first story is one of racial hysteria and how black men tend to feel after numerous bouts with racism. Don’t Let them Get your Head, is the old saying just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you personified. Bradley the aforementioned paranoid person and his wife Jenna are on their way to a Zora Neil Hurston in northern Florida tend to be less hospitable to black folk than the southern part of the state. While on the road Bradley is wary of everything, the nature of the festival itself calling it an ‘appeasement thing’, which white people let them do. The couple ends up out of gas in front of the house of an old white couple. Jenna is given water and then things go left, while the couple isn’t racist they are something just as inhuman. The next story is Baba vs The White Hoods is a story where the vengeful spirit of a wrongly executed slave, attacks KKK members who are out looking for his grave in order to deface it and they end up getting a deadly surprise. The last story is of a teenaged gargoyle named Fanger Nails who encounters a ghost that attempts to haunt her and after a few seconds of squabbling, they decide to join forces leaving the door open for more adventures.

Story

My favorite story in this anthology was Baba vs The White Hoods because it wraps up fairly nicely, Don’t Let them Get in your Head story had a great premise but didn’t have anything that felt like a real conclusion. The character of Bradley is a very real person and highlights just how intensely racism and the fear of its reach can permeate our minds and make us paranoid. I the case of Bradley and Jenna, his paranoia almost saved them as he was wary of the two elderly white people from the beginning. I would have liked to know what they were and what their plans were for the couple but maybe we’ll get that in issue 3? Baba vs The White Hoods was a great vengeance horror story in the vein of a Jason Vorhees, a bunch of horrible people getting killed by a vengeful spirit and I was all for it. I wasn’t really interested in Fanger Nails, the tone seemed much different than the first two tales and gave me more of a Danny Phantom vibe than a horror story feel. I’d love to see more of the Don’t Let Them Get in your Head in another installment of this book.

Pictures

Luis Gabotto illustrates Don’t Let Them Get in Your Head very well, adding a bit of an EC horror feel to the proceedings. The characters while not grotesque are exaggerated in their features, especially in times of distress, and the simple yet efficient shapes that comprise their figures give them a familiar yet eerie feeling especially when it comes to the elderly white couple. He also expertly illustrates the very Tales from the Crypt like Baba vs The White Hoods and does an amazing job of capturing the Klan member’s looks of horror as they are brutally murdered by Baba. Fanger Nails’ art is actually fairly good but the bright colors and the characters' youthful appearances seem a bit out of place, though that’s not by any means a bad thing. I just feel like the last stories art could have been better placed in another issue.