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 One

Independent and WebComic Crossovers

In addition to crossing over with popular horror characters from film (Chucky and Herbert West), the series crosses over with the real-world goth modelling website Suicide Girls (Cassie has a profile page) the Evan Dorkin characters Milk and Cheese (pictured left) begin to make appearances in Cassie’s dreams and, Cassie and Vlad end up having crossover events with the webcomic series Halloween Man where Cassie and Vlad “…go to-toe-toe with Drew Edwards's Halloween Man in a free webcomic called “Hackoween,” available for download at halloweenman.com. “Several years ago, Drew Edwards had asked about doing a web-print comic crossover. And since ‘Halloween Man’ is a pretty fun, horror humor comic, I thought it meshed perfectly,” Seeley explained. (Richards, 2008)

Crossovers in comics are nothing new, they bring different types of readers together and introduce them to characters they may otherwise be unfamiliar with. The first crossover in comics was in Marvel Mystery Comics in 1940 where Namor the Submariner fought the Human Torch. As horror comics don’t tend to have the audience size of superhero comics, crossovers can be a benefit to both titles as they increase the exposure to another audience. Being a long-time fan of the horror genre myself, I’ve found that the crossovers in Hack/Slash have exposed me to a number of titles I had either never heard of or had decided weren’t my style.

Personally, one of the most delightful crossovers in Hack/Slash is with Author Tim Seeley’s earlier creation Love Bunny & Mr. Hell. A bizarre pairing between a cute super-hero and an H.P. Lovecraft-style demon who end up as roommates and friends. The 2002 series is an obvious precursor to Hack/Slash in many ways, but as it only lasted a few episodes, I had always wondered what happened to this strange duo. Although their appareances in Hack/Slash don’t specifically answer that question, it may introduce new readers to the title.


Image Used
Image from Hack/Slash Issue 12. Retrieved online from http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/05/15/interview-tim-seeley-on-hack-slash-and-suicide-girls-crossovers/

WORKS CITED
Richards, D. (2008, October 29). "Happy Hackoween: Seeley talks Hack/Slash" in Comic Book Resources. Retrieved online from http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=18616