Kolchak Tales: Night Stalker of the Living Dead Options

[ChuckMoore]

32 pages, full color, $3.99
written by Chris Mills
art by Tim Hamilton
cover by Dave Aikins

This is it, Kolchak fans! One more small town that thought "it couldn’t happen here" is overrun with the animated corpses of men and… pigs? Hey, zombies are zombies, and they’re everywhere! Carl Kolchak just wants to finish his story before lunch, especially since he’s on the menu! Just what IS the terrible secret behind this little farm town?

[Glen Davis]

The first issue came out, and it's fantastic!

[Glen Davis]

Finally got issue #2.

Another great issue by Mills, one of the more underrated writers in the field. Kolchak gets some great lines and some real character moments. The immediate danger seems to be these zombie like things shambling around, but nobody knows what is causing the condition. They also find that the affliction is affecting hogs in a great sequence.

I highly recommend this.

[Glen Davis]

What a great series this was. I really hope it gets collected. Do yourself a favor and get this,one of the best "living dead" comics I've read.

[ChuckMoore]

I would certainly pick it up as a trade.

[Glen Davis]

Apparetnly, Chris Mills is going to be writing an ongoing Kolchak series, debuting in 2009. I really think they were better off with the mini series, but it is apparently mostly going to be one and two shot stories.

[Glen Davis]

Got the Kolchak Annual.

Pretty decent double sized issue with two stories.

The first story, where Kolchak meets Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows, is okay, but breaks the formula, which is basically why I like Kolchak.

The second, which I liked better, concerned an encounter with giants in Nevada. Pretty good, but a trifle strange, possibly some kind of lead in to the ongoing.

[Glen Davis]

Only just had time to read Kolchak meets Sherlock Holmes, a 3 issue mini, sort of a fill in till the ongoing starts...someday.

It's fairly disjointed as projects that join two characters separated by 100 years, and thousands of miles usually are.

An attractive young woman gives a diary of some sort to Kolchak, as per instructions on a will. Kolchak reads the diary...and we switch to Sherlock Holmes in London, tracking down a murderer in some way connected to smuggling.

Fairly decent as these things go, but there is still some glitches in the art from moonstone. Kolchak seems slightly altered, it sems Monstone is trying maybe a little too hard to ensure no one thinks he's gay. Remember when that wasn't a problem? Ahh nostalgia.

[Guy Ricketts]

Sherlock Holmes and Kolchak: The Night Stalker issue one (of three)

"It's hard to describe the tundra-cold-chill that shot through my nervous system upon seeing my name in some century-old scrawl, but that was just the tip of the iceberg of what was to come."
- Carl Kolchak



"Cry of Thunder"
Story - Joe Gentile
Art - Carlos Magno (pages 1, 7-30)
and Andy Bennett (pages 2-6)

This issue has exceeded my expectations. And it teams my favorite literary figure with my favorite television hero. And the concept is pure genius.
It begins when a beautiful woman named Brandy Lexton presents reporter Carl Kolchak at The Hollywood Dispatch with a problem - and a journal. Due to circumstances of the Tony Vincenzo-variety, Kolchak is unable to look at it until a bit later. But when he does, he glances at the note written in the inside jacket of the journal, and is shocked to discover the note is from none other than Sherlock Holmes.
From there, we have the first part of an adventure involving Sherlock Holmes.
Joe Gentile's characterization for both Kolchak and Holmes rings true. Carl's narration and his underlying cynicism contain words I can hear Darren McGavin speaking. Possibly due to the cover, Holmes sounds like Jeremy Brett (or Basil Rathbone). Thankfully, John Watson does not sound like Nigel Bruce, and Gentile is also smart enough to give dimension to the character of Lestrade. There are no two-dimensional figures in this story.
Sherlock Holmes and Carl Kolchak "team up" in a tale that takes place in two different centurys, and Gentile's wonderfully crafted tale has me dying to know what is inside that box Holmes finds, and how the hell even he could possibly know of Carl Kolchak, far into the future.
The game is indeed afoot...

[Glen Davis]

Got the second issue of this, and it's pretty good, but there seems to be a bit of drift in the storyline.

[Glen Davis]

The third and final issue of the Kolchak/Sherlock Holmes team up is a disappointment. It tries to do too much in too little space. We get giant birds, time slippage, and a centuries long conspiracy that never actually accomplishes anything.

Very muddled.

[Glen Davis]

Lovecraftian Damnation is one of Moonstone's Letterboxed illustrated novels.

Kolchak gets involved with the elder gods and the necronomicon.

Not a bad 44 pages, with some pretty good pictures. I hope they come out with another mini soon.

[Glen Davis]

Kolchak: The Night Strangler is a comic adaptation of the novel by the great Richard Matheson.

Great on every level. Highly recommended.

[Glen Davis]

Kolchak: The Night Stalker Files #1 sets up the new ongoing by Christopher Mills.

The story is pretty decent, with Kolchak coming up against a movie monster, and the monster behind it.

The art, however, isn't quite up to snuff for an adaptation of a TV show.

[Glen Davis]

Kolchak: The Night Stalker Files #2 finally made it in. Kolchak drives down to Florida to go to work for a supermarket tabloid that gives him a column. He runs right into a series of killing that appear to be perpetrated by the famed skunk ape. Good beginning sets things up in the new city, Miami.

[Glen Davis]

Kolchak #3 ends the swamp ape storyline with quite a twist. Ihope this is one liscense that Moonstone manages to keep.