Okay, the comic is at least a sequel to the first and second movies. I’ve seen some of the other ones, but I can’t remember what happens in them. What’s going on here (if I understand correctly… Barker and Monfette’s attempts at giving the cenobites—if you don’t already know, don’t ask—formal speech is somewhat painful) is Pinhead wants to be human again so he’s going on a question. Juxtaposed is the girl from the first two movies who apparently has gotten a lot better since then (she’s now an artist, painting Pinheads and getting engaged).

Manco does a good job with almost everything… except Pinhead. Manco’s approach is so finished, so photo-referenced, it looks like they’re adding a still to the panels and he’s drawing around it. But the rest of the visuals are strong.

While better than I thought it would be, I wasn’t expecting much.

Now… I know I’m not the target audience (though I do love Leonardo Manco from some of his nineties work), but even so… I wish Boom! had gotten someone better than Christopher Monfette to clean up Clive Barker’s dialogue.

It’s unclear how Barker and Monfette split the duties, but something about the lame dialogue makes me think Barker’s got some kind of a hand in it.

Again, I’m not the Barker audience. I like good writers.

Boom! has done something interesting with the zero issue—it’s a freely available PDF. I’m pretty sure it’s the highest profile “digital only” release to date and it’s nice Boom! released it in an open format.

Though Manco’s art probably looks even better on the printed page.

It’s free and he nearly makes it worth a look. Or if you just want to snicker at the dialogue.