Creature Feature #1 (of 2) – A Spotlight Review

Creature Feature #1 (of 2)

Publisher : Th3rd World Studios
Editor Mike Raicht

On the Stands: September/October 2008
48 Pages in B&W
Price $4.50
Diamond Order Code: JUL084217

The Official Company Hype : Do you remember when your local drive-in was rocking on a Friday night and all of the monsters were the result of nuclear waste and government conspiracies? Creature Feature is your chance to relive your youth or visit a joyous time of cinematic insanity done right for the first time. Welcome back to the 70s and 80s because the first Triple and a half Creature Feature of the new millennium is set to begin! This issue features three and a half scintillating tales of monstrous horror done right - over the top and gratuitous with a super-cool soundtrack. (Readers are responsible for providing their own tunes.) Grab a date, leave the kids at home, and stuff as many friends in your trunk as possible for out of this world terror in Abducted by Chris Yost, hot girls and feathery friends in Hooters by CB Cebulski, creepy crawlies in Why Did It Have To Be Spiders? by Andy Schmidt, and the first half of the rocktacular Rockenstein by Brian Smith, a tale so demented the drive-in is only willing to screen the first half of it lest they get shut down altogether for public indecency!

Oh and do they ever deliver. This book is so much fun that it is a misdemeanor in Europe and a felony in certain situations in the United States and has been banned by the Coalition for Keeping Comics Dull and Uninteresting. Each story was a gem and it delivers what is promised in the hype and how often can you say that with a book.

Story #1: Hooters
Writer: CB Cebulski
Art: Shaun Turnbull

Hooters was so much fun playing with having Hooter’s girls going out on a camping trip and the menace itself being Owls. It was very stereotypical, starting with the girls all goofing off with each others and one dumping the other in a lake so we get wet t-shirts and various T&A shoots, which is what all these type of films would do. Find four to five beautiful woman and put them into a horror situation.

The other Hooters are appropriately creepy as a flock of Owls starts to stalk our young nubile women. While they are asleep the Owls attack and mayhem ensures.

I will not give away how it all ends as you should buy the comic to see for yourself, but it works and is a wonderful story that captures what these type of movies are all about.

The art by Shaun Turnbull is well done. He makes the women appropriate curvaceous and good looking, without going over the top in their endowments. The Owls have a great creepy vibe to them and his work is very solid.

Tagline: Hooters, hooters everywhere, who couldn’t have fun!

Story #2: Night of the Abductors
Writer: Chris Yost
Art: Jon Reed

This was the funniest story of all three complete stories. The opening segment as our young couple is copulating in the back seat of a car is hilarious as the alien walks up on them. It was one of those moments when you actually could laugh out loud while reading.

The rest of the story is equally amusing as our erstwhile “hero” calls in some of his friends and they decide they are going to try and get money from the aliens to return they one they captured.

Again I’m not going to give away all of the story but the twist and turns have both the humor and the occasionally killing of a character that makes this another great “Creature Feature”. It does a great job of telling a story that is both a very humorous tale and also a good little story.

Again we are blessed with a strong art job by Jon Reed in this story. He captures both the “scary” and “humor” aspects with equal ease. His expressions really sell a lot of what the writer was trying to get across. I also thought he does a great job with his camera angles.

Tagline: Night of the Abductors will carry you away with a smile.

Story #3: Why Did it Have to be Spider?
Writer: Andy Schmidt
Pencils: Joe Lalich
Inks: John Czop

A series of Creature Features has to have some giant insects and spiders are always a popular choice. This is story that has a lot of implied background stuff going on as a married couple and their teen-age son are moving into a new house. The wife is telling her husband that he has to forget about what happened in Philly and we are left to wander what did happen.

The son goes to explore the attic and finds a spider. The Dad stated that when he was working to build this neighborhood they had used a new bug spray from a manufacturer to take care of them. I love that type of line, as you know “NEW” is always a big honking clue for something is not going to go right.

You can guess how the story goes from there, but it is executed very well and is another great addition to this book.

The art was very clean and probably the strongest art from a more realistic and traditional style. Of course I thought it was just plain cruelty to bring in an inker, when you see the amount of line work that goes into a giant spider story (think webbing) and you will see what I mean.

Tagline: Why did it have to be Spiders? Because nothing else would do!

Part 1 of Story #4: Rocketstein
Creator: Brian Smith

This was my least favorite story of the group, but it is only Part 1. It certainly has some good humor in it and has a few moments that I enjoyed, but marrying heavy metal rock with Frankenstein just missed the mark for me. I do believe that fans of heavy metal rock bands (which I understand is legion) will get a kick out of this story.

The first half of the story was well written and I especially enjoyed the narrative by our central character and his description of what was happening to what was really happening.

Brian’s art is more akin to a cartoonist strip style then anything else. The panel by panel layout struck me as being almost more of a strip comic, then a normal comic book.

Framing/Introduction: Maybe my favorite part of the book was Editor Mike Raicht acting as Uncle Creepy (certainly not Elvira) as he introduced each story as he was running the film projector onto the drive-in movie screen. It was very funny and each introduction played upon the story just told.

Overall Grade A

Tagline: Creature Features delivers on its promise, a fun filled fright fest with monsters and laughter. A pure and unadulterated joy.


Also a breaking news item: Space Doubles – another fun product from Th3rd World is now coming out in graphic novel form and you can pre-order it from Amazon here. It includes the never published stories for issue #4 and #5! Order it today, you won’t be disappointed – Think Outer Limits and Twilight Zone and you have the core concept.