Ah! You’re here.
Tickets, please. The train leaves shortly. And your destination is a perfect one for this time of year.
All this month, Biff Bam Pop! has been presenting you with various horror-themed pieces. Even this column has gotten in on the act, here and here. Of course, to recommend a horror-themed comic book each Wednesday in October, an interesting one needs to be released. And today is a bit of a cheat.
To ride this train, you could punch your ticket today, like most will. But the real clever readers of graphic fiction – graphic horror fiction – got theirs yesterday.
Yesterday, today. Either way, The Spectral Engine is waiting for you! All aboard!
The Spectral Engine
Written and Illustrated by: Ray Fawkes
Published by: McClelland & Stewart
Released in comic book shops today (and in bookstores everywhere yesterday), The Spectral Engine is written and illustrated by Ray Fawkes, a Harvey Award and Eisner Award finalist for the wonderful prose graphic novel, One Soul and current writer of Justice League Dark, Trinity of Sin: Pandora and Constantine for DC Comics.
Here, alongside McClelland & Stewart, better known, perhaps, for publishing the kinds of novels found in more proper bookstores, Fawkes remains in the darker corners of the world, detailing thirteen historically documented ghost stories. It’s both a strength and a passion of his. Across both centuries and cultures, in The Spectral Engine we find unsettling stories about the Underground Railroad, the sinking of a luxury ocean liner, battling First Nations Tribes, the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway and an encounter with the mythical northern creature known as the Wendigo.
But there’s a common thread among these thirteen tales, told and passed down among people, changed in some ways and forgotten in others. With the graphic novel’s opening words, Fawkes tells us that, when speaking about history, remembrance is important. It’s a perfect philosophical backdrop for ghost stories. The black and white artwork in The Spectral Engine is rich and evocative, the brushwork of Fawkes loose and atmospheric, all traits that add to the book’s sense of mystery – and dread.
The Spectral Engine is perfect October reading. Oh! And don’t forget to hold the cover to a light source – and then turn it off so that you stand alone in the dark. It spookily glows, ghostlike. 31 Days of Horror indeed!
Make the run to you local comic book shop or your local bookstore today and pick up Ray Fawkes’ The Spectral Engine – it’s one ride you’ll want a ticket for!
Every Wednesday, JP makes the after-work run to his local downtown comic book shop. Comics arrive on Wednesdays you see and JP, fearful that the latest issue will sell out, rushes out to purchase his copy. This regular, weekly column will highlight a particularly interesting release, written in short order, of course, because JP has to get his – before someone else does!
