Gloomcookie
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Gloomcookie is a gothic comic series created and written by Serena Valentino (Nightmares & Fairy Tales) and co-created by Ted Naifeh, who also illustrated the comic’s first six issues. The series functions both as a social satire on real-life Gothic subculture and as a supernatural fantasy.
Gloomcookie is irregularly published by Slave Labor Graphics. As of July 2008, 28 issues have been published, as well as a one shot special, Gloomcookie: A Monster's Christmas Color Special. Five volumes of reprints have been published, each of the first four including six issues of the series in trade paperback form, and the last one including five issues of the series.
Characters
Main characters
- Lex: The primary female protagonist, Lex is a novelty-shop employee and avid goth clubgoer. Lex eventually discovers that she and Damion are star-crossed lovers.
- Sebastian: A lonely boy who sometimes suspects that he is confusing his dreams with reality. In truth, Sebastian has the ability to manipulate reality at will, either deliberately or accidentally. However, his powers often create unpredictable and dangerous side-effects. Sebastian also has true sight, which allows him to see monsters for what they are and to have prophetic dreams.
- Chrys: Sebastian's girlfriend. Chrys was originally an inanimate waxen sculpture, brought to life accidentally by Sebastian's powers. Chrys was, for a time, possessed by the Monster, who made her bring boys home and eat them. She eventually coughed up the Monster and went back to her normal self.
- Damion: Lex's cursed lover, Damion is doomed to fall in love with incarnation after incarnation of Lex, and to watch her die. Damion was originally a gargoyle, brought to life by Isabella to keep her company. He has the ability to take on the form of either a normal human being or a winged gargoyle, allowing him to fly among other things.
- Isabella: The main villain of the series, Isabella is perceived as selfish, cold and manipulative. It is revealed that she in fact feels very lonely and miserable because she is a monster. Isabella used to be a part of the Carnival Macabre. She is also responsible for Lex and Damion's curse. Like Damion, she can either take the form of a human being, or that of a winged monster.
- The Monster: Sebastian's fearsome-looking guardian lives beneath his bed. For some time, the Monster ate all the girls Sebastian brought home, until Chrys, in turn, ate him. The Monster used to be part of the Carnival Macabre.
Secondary characters
- Max: Another staple at the club, Max shares an on-again, off-again relationship with Lex, to which he refuses to commit himself. Lex and Max drift apart as Lex pursues a relationship with Damion.
- Vermillion: A wealthy, spoiled, socially awkward young man with a tenuous grip on reality. Vermillion enjoys reading his terrible poetry in goth clubs and is obsessed with a roleplaying game called 'Nosferatu: The Charade' (an obvious parody of Vampire: The Masquerade)
- Lyndi: A mutual friend of Chrys and Lex, with whom they often commiserate over coffee.
- Moonraven: Self-proclaimed "Queen of San Francisco", who pines for Vermillion's love and affection so much that she deceives him into believing she possesses 'Nosferatu' powers.
- Vincent: Sebastian's father. Vincent is the ringleader of the Carnival Macabre, and looks strikingly like Vincent Price, which leads Sebastian (who always wished Vincent Price were his father) to wonder whether Vincent is another product of his imagination.
- Lucy: Lucy is Sebastian's mother. She ran away from the Carnival with Sebastian shortly after his birth, causing the Carnival's partial dismantling.
- Jezebel and Gretchen: the conjoined twins Jezebel and Gretchen were members of the Carnival Macabre until Isabella left with them and employed them as her servants. Isabella later returned them to the Carnival.
- Artemus: Artemus is Isabella's lover, he is a werewolf, he was a member of the Carnival Macabre until Isabella left, upon his return he helped Isabella break the curse.
- Sarah: Sarah is a mutual friend of Lex and Lyndi, she was also Sebastian's ex-girlfriend, she was eaten by the monster, but Sebastian brought her from another dimension from which she was not eaten by the monster, in that dimension she was going out with Max.
Development
Each 6-issue run has featured a different artist, beginning with Ted Naifeh, followed by John Gebbia, Breehn Burns, Harley Sparx and currently Vincent Batignole.
Recently it was revealed on Serena Valentino's LiveJournal page that she intended to end the individual issue release of the series, in favour of releasing a series of complete graphic novels at an undisclosed time. Serena, and Gloomcookie's current artist Vincent Batignole, have chosen to focus their efforts on a new comic project instead, titled Enchanted.