I know I only have 4 posts, but I bet some of you who aren’t totally familiar with the comic world are wondering who the fuck those 4 characters in my header are. Well, I sure as HELL hope you know who the second one is. If you don’t, just leave. I mean, come on. Anyway. This post is the beginning of a weekly thingimajigger I will call “Read This Shit!” So, this is Read This Shit! #1
Title: Hack/Slash
Writer: Tim Seeley
Pencils: Emily Stone
Inks & Colors: Courtney Via
Tim Seeley took a break from his usual job of being a penciller and decided to create one of the most awesome comics Devil’s Due Press has to offer. Hack/Slash is a comic book all about slashers. “What’s a slasher?” you might ask. Well, it’s pretty easy. Freddy Kreuger. Jason. Chucky. Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw. The Devil’s Rejects. All examples of slashers. They kill people, and it’s pretty fucking hard to kill them. For some reason, they’re prone to cheating death. And in Hack/Slash, those characters are all real in our world. So who’s gonna stomp a bitch?!
Meet Cassie Hack – she’s the babe on the right, just in case you’re an idiot. Cassie grew up in Wisconsin with her po-ass, ugly momma cuz her deadbeat dad booked it pretty early on. When this BAMF (that’s BAD ASS MOTHER FUCKER, for those of you who don’t know who Samuel L. Jackson is) was in school, she got teased on all the time cuz that’s how we roll here in America towards kids who are underprivileged victims of horrible circumstances. Her hideous mom – who happened to be the lunch lady at her daughter’s high school – noticed how horribly the douches were treating her little Cassandra and decided to do something about it. Soon, kids started dropping like flies. As it turns out, a freshman’s tolerance to arsenic in their mashed potatoes and mystery meat is pretty non-existent. Go. Figure. Cassie, she’s a pretty smart cookie. She realizes what’s going down and calls the police. She saves the Lunch Lady’s last victim, but is forced to watch her mother commit suicide via DUNKING HER HEAD IN A VAT OF BOILING OIL. Like, holyfukk. That is quite a sight, amiright?!
So it’s off to a new school and a foster home headed by super-religious foster parents for Cassie. She deals with it by keeping her cool and training in various fighting styles. Eventually, Lunch Lady returns (cuz she’s a slasher, duh) and Cassie is forced to put a CAP in her ASS. Feeling like shit for the whole ordeal with… well, her shitty life… she takes the show on the road, seeking out slashers and putting a stop to their shit. In Chicago, she stumbles upon a character named “The Meatman” who many thought were behind a series of horrible teenage deaths. Well, he wasn’t. He was just a big hideous dude named Vlad. They hunt down the REAL bad guy, and forge a partnership.
Vlad is also a BAMF. He’s huge. His face is fucked up. Okay, okay, I’ll be nicer – he’s totally disfigured and hideous. Vlad is a gentle creature who happens to wield two huge fucking meat cleavers or machetes at all times. He was rescued from a trash can as a baby by a butcher, so he’s been holed up in that guy’s basement for as long as he’s been alive. The butcher taught him with comic books, and taught him how to use knives to try to deal with his body’s restrictions. When the butcher died, he went above ground and sparked the rumors that led to Cassie finding him. He wears a gas mask to help him breathe better since his body is used to the thin, filtered air in the butcher’s basement. And. You know. Cuz his face is fucked up. I dunno if I’d rather see Vlad with a gas mask or without, to be honest with you. Either way, even Chuck Norris is gonna stop and go “whoa.” Vlad isn’t exactly intelligent, but he’s not dumb. He’s definitely the muscle of the team – not that Cassie hasn’t proven herself as a BAMF, mind you. He picks things up from Cassie pretty damn quick, but he’s kind of naive. He can also barely speak english. It’s kind of endearing, though. He’s very protective over Cassie, and there’ll be hell to pay if you cross either of them.
This incredibly awkward duo roams around, picking up rumors from various information networks and using it to track down and kill assholes. It’s great.
Even though the themes of the comic are pretty dark and serious, Tim Seeley does a great job of keeping comedy an essential part of the monthly series. Hack/Slash actually started as a series of one-shots from DDP in 2004. It gained popularity and was turned into a monthly publication in 2007. It’s currently in the works to be a movie. For a while now… We’ll see.
Hack/Slash keeps it interesting. Every issue is filled with back story or an advance in the overall plotline of the comic. Even the filler is GOOD SHIT. I’ve definitely laughed out loud a couple times while reading it. Imagine Joss Whedon and Matt Groening having a kid. That’s kind of how I see Hack/Slash. Tim Seeley knows just the right mixture of satire and seriousness to keep you reading and entertained. There are themes that everyone can enjoy. Unless you don’t like hot chicks that beat the shit out of people. What’s WRONG with you?!
“But you don’t have to take my word for it!”
…That was a Reading Rainbow reference. Just so you know.
Recommended Reading:
Hack/Slash Omnibus Volume 1
Start out from the beginning. Things will make more sense, and you won’t miss out on the cool inside jokes later on in the series. There’s really not much more to say after that!
You can start with Hack/Slash Volume 1 (which is a trade paperback), but the Omnibus is only a few bucks more and you get a THICK-ASS BOOK, DUDE. Hack/Slash is quickly becoming a cult classic in the comic world. So read this shit!
