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Review – We Kill Monsters

By | August 9th, 2010
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If you’re a fan of cult classic science fiction, you’ll probably have heard of the creative team of Christopher Leone and Laura Harkcom. The duo created a popular sci-fi miniseries entitled The Lost Room, which aired in 2006 on SyFy. The duo teamed up to write and create a mini-series on Red 5 Comics entitled We Kill Monsters, arted by Brian Churilla, and I was given the opportunity of reading it.

The story stars Basher brothers Jake and Andrew, auto-mechanics who live together in a no-name town out in the middler of nowhere. Andrew spends his days hopelessly in love with local bartender Vanessa, while Jake is more focused on his auto-mechanic trade. One night Andrew is attacked outside the bar by a vicious monster, and Jake saves him only to find out that during the attack his arm is mutated into a monster arm. Discovering that monsters have overrun their town, the brothers set out to solve where they came from and stop them once and for all.

Click behind the cut for my thoughts on the six issue mini.

You’ll probably find a lot of comparisons that people will make in order to convey what kind of a story this is. To be honest, the closest thing I can think of is Slither. It has an excellent mix of humor and horror (with ostensibly more humor) that makes it a good genre crosser. With Jake the younger and “dumber” brother alongside Andrew the older but “cowardly” brother, the two characters make a good dynamic for the story to be told. Jake’s crossing with the monster that leads to his mutated arm becomes a very interesting story point as it changes throughout based on the different monsters he interacts with, and works as a good multiple deus ex machina within the stories plot. The action is ultimately what drives the story forward as the brothers are put into various monster fighting situations throughout the series, all of whom have a humorous undertone to them.

Harkcom and Leone make a good creative duo, and their writing comes through quite well. From a sheer writing standpoint, the plot is thought out quite well with a lot of payoffs throughout the story. In fact, just about every minor element plays out later in the story in an appropriate way based around various tropes in classic storytelling. The character definition is story is quite good, and the entire tale feels rather endearing by the time you reach the end, which undoubtedly sets itself up for a sequel – which is more than welcome. I’d love to see Leone and Harkcom work further on these characters and their adventures fighting monsters, and if the little “vol. 1” on the trade is any indication, that wish will assuredly be fulfilled.

Rounding off the team on the book is Brian Churilla, who has the artist duties. Churilla is someone whose work I’m not very familiar with, but is one who definitely perfectly matches the tone of the story with his artwork. The story is definitely helped by his tonality, which helps to emphasize the humor aspect due to his inherent cartoonish nature of art. His nature of character design works perfectly, especially when it comes simply to how the brothers interact with one another. You really get a feel of who the brothers are in the same way you might if they were fully animated, and Churilla’s art would actually work perfectly in an animated adaptation of the story.

All in all, We Kill Monsters works very well. The collected edition is a fun and entertaining read with an open enough ending to warrant more stories. It has a very well laid out plot, good action, and a great sense of humor to it. As a genre crossing tale, it’d appeal to plenty of fans of horror comedies, so if you like things like Slither or even Shaun of the Dead, We Kill Monsters is definitely worth checking out.


Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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