User:Paul730/Halloween

Several comic books have been published to tie into the Halloween film series.

Overview

Chaos! Comics

The first Halloween comic was published by Brian Pulido's Chaos Comics. Simply titled Halloween, it was intended to be a one-issue special, but eventually two sequels spawned: Halloween II: The Blackest Eyes and Halloween III: The Devil's Eyes. All of the stories were written by Phil Nutman, with Daniel Farrands—writer for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers—assisting on the first issue; David Brewer and Justiniano worked on the illustrations. The comics follow Tommy Doyle as he obtains Dr. Sam Loomis' journal, which details Michael Myers' time spent at Smith's Grove Sanitarium. After being attacked by Myers, Tommy vows to finally kill him.

In The Blackest Eyes, Sheriff Leigh Brackett murders innocent man Richie Castle after mistaking him for Michael Myers. While disposing of the body, Brackett meets Tommy and explains to him that Michael is part of cursed druid bloodline. The pair are attacked by a cult of druids led by Michael's childhood babysitter Mrs. Blankenship. Tommy battles Michael Myers once again, but is kidnapped by the cult members and committed to Smith's Grove for Michael's murders. The Devil's Eyes sees Tommy escape from Smith's Grove and reunite with his childhood friend Lindsay Wallace. Completing Loomis' journals, Tommy and Lindsay discover there was another sibling of Michael Myers who was stillborn and the child's cursed soul possessed Michael. They are then attacked by Laurie Strode, who has gone insane and become a masked killer like her brother. Laurie kills Tommy, and is sent to Smith's Grove.

Independant

Halloween: One Good Scare was released in 2003; it was written by Stefan Hutchinson and illustrated by Peter Fielding. After killing his sister Laurie Strode, Michael Myers begins stalking Lindsey Wallace, one of the survivors from the original film. Lindsey is eventually committed to Smith's Grove Sanitarium, where she recieves psychiatric treatment from Dr. David Loomis, son of Sam Loomis. David is wary of inheriting his father's obsession, but nevertheless becomes fascinated with Lindsey and Michael. Michael finally comes after Lindsey on Halloween, killing several staff at the hospital to get to her. David tries to help her escape, but his fear gets the better of him; Michael kills Lindsey and strings her up like a scarecrow.

On July 25, 2006, as an insert inside the DVD release of 25 Years of Terror, Hutchinson released Halloween: Autopsis. Written by Hutchinson, and artwork by Marcus Smith and Nick Dismas, the story is about a photographer assigned to take pictures of Michael Myers. As the photographer, Carter, follows Dr. Loomis he begins to take on Loomis's obsession himself, until finally meeting Michael Myers in person, which results in his death.

Devil's Due Publishing

Rob Zombie's reboot of the film series ensured that any Halloween comics would not be contradicted by upcoming films, allowing Hutchinson creative freedom. Malek Akkad was approached by Devil's Due Publishing with the possibility of producing a line of Halloween comics, and he and Hutchinson worked to make them a reality. Hutchinson was convinced by the strong support of One Good Scare that the comic books would have an audience. In 2008, Stefan Hutchinson released the first issue of his new comic book, Halloween: Nightdance. This is a four issue mini-series, and it does not contain any characters—other than Michael—from the films. The four issues are titled, "A Shape in the Void", "The Silent Clown", "A Rainbow in One Color", and "When The Stars Came Crashing Down". The first issue, "A Shape in the Void", takes place on October 31, 2000, so that it falls between Halloween H20 and Halloween Resurrection. Issue one follows Michael as he stalks Lisa, a fifteen year-old girl with insecurities and "a chronic fear of darkness". Hutchinson explains that Nightdance was an attempt to escape the dense continuity of the film series and recreate the tone of the 1978 film. Michael becomes inexplicably fixated on Lisa, just as he did with Laurie in the original Halloween, before the sequels established that a sibling bond was actually his motivation for stalking her. The aim was to once again establish Michael Myers as a "credible and dangerous force".

August 2008 saw the release of Devil's Due's Halloween: 30 Years of Terror to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Halloween franchise. This comic book one-shot is a collection of short stories inspired by John Carpenter's original. "Trick or Treat" features the MacKenzies, unseen characters from the first film who Tommy and Lindsey run to for help. "P.O.V." shows a murder from the point of view of both Michael and his victim, "Visiting Hours" sees Laurie Strode reflecting on how her life could have been had her brother never found her in 1978, while "Tommy and the Boogeyman" reveals that Tommy Doyle grew up to write comic books featuring Michael Myers. In the final story, "Repetition Compulsion", Dr. Loomis tries to predict where Michael will strike next on Halloween, 1989. Writer Hutchinson explains that H30 came about because, unlike previous decades, there was no Halloween film coming out in 2008 to acknowledge the occasion.

Devil's Due released four issue mini-series Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode in late 2008. Written by Hutchinson with artwork from Jeff Zornow, the story bridges the gap between Halloween II and Halloween H20 by focusing on Laurie Strode in the aftermath of the 1978 murders. Hutchinson explains that Laurie is "trying to get better and trying to repair, but where do you even start after going through such horror? How do you even try to resume normality when you don’t know what that is anymore?" Although Michael appears in the series, it is not clear whether he is real or if the traumatised Laurie is seeing things. Hutchinson is not a fan of the revelation that Laurie and Michael are siblings and took steps to address that problem in the story. He wanted to avoid the "bloodline plot of the middle sequels", which he felt demystified the character of the Shape, and approach the story so that "it becomes almost incidental that she’s his sister". Hutchinson believed that Laurie Strode's evolution into Keri Tate was fertile ground for a storyline; he says, "it’s not the faking of the death that’s interesting at all, but it’s the fall that leads to that happening. The faked death is just simple mechanics and can be covered in a sentence, but the state of mind and events leading to that are full of rich character and dramatic potential."

Development

These comics were based on Daniel Farrand's concept for Halloween 8; he had been approached by the producers to pitch a follow-up to Halloween H20. His idea was to have Tommy Doyle incarcerated at Smith's Grove for Michael Myers' crimes, only to escape and reunite with Lindsay Wallace. Together, they study the journals of Dr. Loomis and find out more about Michael's childhood. The movie would have explored Michael's time at Smith's Grove and relationship with Dr. Loomis, before returning to Tommy and Lindsay, who are attacked by the adult Michael Myers. Upon defeating him and removing his mask, they discover Laurie Strode, who has taken over her brother's mantle. Farrand's logic was that, since Jamie Lee Curtis was contracted to cameo in Halloween 8, they should make that cameo as significant and surprising as possible. Although the studio did not follow up on his pitch, Farrands was able to tell his story in comic book form.

One Good Scare came about because Hutchinson wanted to produce a comic book to celebrate the series' twenty-fifth anniverary; it was to be sold as a collectible at a Halloween convention in South Pasadena. Due to the positive reception to One Good Scare, Hutchinson hoped to use the comic as a "demo" for getting a distribution deal, but was unable to due to rights issues. When writing Halloween: One Good Scare, Hutchinson wanted to bring the character back to his roots, and away from the "lumbering Jason-clone" the film sequels had made him.

While waiting to aquire the rights to publish more Halloween comics, Stefan Hutchinson worked on the documentary Halloween: 25 Years of Terror with Malek Akkad. Together, they developed ideas for possible Halloween stories that would be “connected into a larger tale, so the idea was that it would use the serial aspect of comic books to create different storylines than would be possible in the films.”

Reception

"A lot of readers found in the comic books what they had been missing from the films in the later sequels. Our books are very faithful to the source material, and by that we mean the original film itself. In our stories, Michael Myers is very much again "The Shape" — the undefined bogeyman of 1978, rather than the family killer of the 80s and 90s."

— Stefan Hutchinson on the fan support of his Halloween comic book series.

Samuel Zimmerman of Fangoria gave issue one a mixed review, commenting that some of Hutchinson's writing felt "dry". He also critcised Zornow's "bright" artwork for detracting from the book's gloomy atmosphere and the "elaborate, splattery gore" for being "too cartoonish". However, Zimmerman felt the series improved in the second issue; he praised the characterization and the fact that "most of these people are worth our sympathy", which made it "unfair and actually scary" that Michael continued to hurt them. He also praised the use of Michael himself, especially the theme that he is everywhere, "both inside Laurie, as family and a menacing force driving her mad, and outside, lurking, waiting to strike." Ain't It Cool News said the story "highlights a more psychological horror, the type of horror that was prominent in the first two Halloween films and less so in subsequent entries and knock-offs".

External links

• Halloween Comics
• Halloween Comics MySpace