Bookmonkey vs Hack/Slash: Day Twenty Seven

The Geography of Hack/Slash


Geography can play an interesting role in comics books.  While the DC Universe has made a number of false cities in their world for their heroes to inhabit (i.e. Superman - Metropolis, Batman - Gotham City, Green Lantern - Coast City), Marvel Comics has decided to go almost the other way entirely and have their heroes inhabit a world virtually identical to ours, which a New York, Chicago, Lost Angeles, etc. (not to say they mirror the real world perfectly, as they include the dinosaur infested Savage Lands and Doctor Doom's beloved homeland of Latveria).

In Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash virtually every issue begins with a descriptor of where in the world Cassie and Vlad are for the issue.  Even the crossovers which travel into the worlds of other comic book characters like Images Bomb Queen or the Webcomic Halloween Man, ensure that Cassie and Vlad have a start point in a recognizable location (Manhattan, New York and San Antonio, Texas respectively).

While I've spent the last month reading through the series, I decided to create a google map showing me where the majority of each issue's action took place and then (hopefully) be able to draw some conclusions.

NOTE: In the linked map - which you can view directly at http://goo.gl/maps/aPGUC
- I have not plotted each location as some of them take place in other worlds (Nef, an Intergalactic Women's Prison, etc), or even off of our own (the Trailers story ORBITuary, for example), also in some cases I've had to guess at the location due to its obvious connection to a horror movie/story already in existence.  Also I've linked to any crossover titles or blog posts related to the covered issue if appropriate in the descriptions for each location.

1) Cassie and Vlad never visit my homeland (Canada) at least in any issues of the series; I suppose I can take this to either mean my country is relatively Slasher-free, or perhaps we need our own home-grown Killer of Killers to take care of our Northern problems.

2) Although there are a small number of events that happen in the western United States (and in the case of the Re-Animator crossover, some very important events) Cassie and Vlad stick to the Eastern United States for the most part.  The series only travels outside of the US twice (a Trailers mini-issue in Tokyo and the four-issue Monster Baiting story arc set in Guyana)

3) If you wanted to avoid Slashers, Florida, Massachusetts, and New Jersey should be on your list of states to avoid, but Utah, Idaho and the Dakotas seem like some nice places to visit.

I've left the map open to the public, so feel free to let me know if I've got some of the spots wrong (as in all things, proof-reading can be invaluable), and for the Hack/Slash fans out there I hope that if the map shows you anything interesting you might share it in a comment on the blog.

Bookmonkey vs Hack/Slash day Twenty Five

Man’s Best Friend…er...Low-Beast

The addition and expansion of characters in superhero comics is a standard phenomenon for any long running series, both Superman and Batman began to expand their respective families within a decade of their creation, and this wasn’t just limited to siblings, cousins and alternate versions of themselves; with“…the introduction of recurrent pets in 1955 – Ace the Bathound and the super-dog Krypto, each with his own “costume” to visually identify his ownership by a superhero” (Best, 2005, 90) animal sidekicks became a standard of the superhero genre, and in the case of Hack/Slash the “super-pet” has a very interesting twist to it.

Meet Pooch.




First introduced in issue three of the first ongoing series, Pooch is a hell-hound of sorts. After Cassie makes her escape from his world he is sent to Earth to track down and kill her. Pooch may be one of the most disturbing creatures I’ve ever come across in comics, he appears as a sort of skinless dog with the (unfortunate) ability to speak English, so instead of barking he literally says the word “Bark”, also he speaks of himself in the third person, often calling himself “Most Humble and Pooch”. Although he is initially sent to earth to find the “Most Hated Cassandra Hack” he quickly gives up his quest and moves in with two of Cassie’s allies, Chris Krank and Lisa Elsten, both survivors of earlier issues of Hack/Slash and the two principal members of Hack/Slash Inc., Cassie and Vlad’s support network throughout the series.

Although he begins his part in the series as a villain, Pooch is played as comic relief throughout the series, asking for Cassie and Vlad’s (and the audiences) sympathy throughout while acting as hideously as possible.

IMAGES USED
Image of Pooch from Issue 3: Shout at the Devil part 2 (of 3)

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/1/15659/2775291-pooch_hack_slash_the_series_3_first_words.jpg

 

 

WORKS CITED

Best, M. (2005) “Domesticity, Homosociality, and Male Power in superhero comics of the 1950s” in Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies. 6(1), 80-99.

Bookmonkey vs Hack/Slash: Day Eighteen

The Inevitable Wizard of Oz Crossover

The story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.
– L. Frank Baum in his Introduction to The Wonderful Wizard of OZ (1900)

It’s strange to think that this was the sentiment behind the story that became the film that gave me nightmares as a child. The Wicked Witch of the West, the flying monkeys and the initial “floating head” version of the Wizard shown in the 1939 MGM motion picture each worked effectively as nightmare batter for my young mind, and as a young boy with bad eyes from the start, very familiar with lengthy and painful eye examinations, Dorothy’s question to the estheticians in the Emerald City “…Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?” resonated with me in a way I’m certain was not the intent of the original author.

So In Hack/Slash #14: Over the Rainbow, Cassie and Vlad are attempting to track down a Slasher who is plaguing the film set of a remake of the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Now I’ll admit that at first glance perhaps no one immediately thinks that a horror-based story is going to inevitably crossover with either the classic 1900 L. Frank Baum novel The Wonderful Wizard of OZ or the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of OZ. But to be fair, the story, and especially the MGM film have become so influential in popular culture that I’ve seen it prequelled, deconstructed and even had that deconstruction turned into a musical. It has also been referred to in everything from the popularity of the quote, to reimaginings, and even a reference in the horror film Saw II.

Also the 1985 film Return to OZ may have one of the most terrifying sequences I ever saw in a film as a child.

So adding a Slasher-twist to the story is, in my mind, nothing short of genius. The story follows both two women on the set running from the Slasher (who has possessed the productions Tin Man and speaks only in lyrics from the classic “If I Only Had a Heart”) and Cassie and Vlad as they race to the set to put an end to the Slasher himself.
IMAGE USED
Hack/Slash of Oz Alternate Cover.  Retrieved online from http://www.newkadia.com/?HackSlash_The_Series_Comic-Book-Covers=1111127128