Black Friday

here we have: Staff at a big box chain store are closing up after the rabid Black Friday chaos, cleaning aisles in the bright-lit eerie quiet. The token goth gal, sensing something dreadful in the toy section, leads her coworkers to find and follow a trail of blood to a pile of knocked-over merchandise. Before they can discover the evil surely lurking under the mound of Cherry Claire dolls, their annoying micromanager interrupts, extolling the virtues of wage labor. But even he can't ignore the strange sounds emanating from the growing bloody spot, where the brave janitor looks to discover... an extremely gnarly portal to somewhere, full of... are those limbs? Are they moving? Is that an eye? Is it looking at us? Oh shit. MONSTERS.

What ensues is a very gruesome, rapid-paced showdown between the beleaguered employees who are most definitely not paid enough to deal with this, and some sincerely terrifying creatures determined to rip them to absolute shreds. And hey, where did that sniveling corporate suck-up manager go? What does he know about the soulless store being used as a hotbed for impersonal interpersonal violence committed by the consuming masses who shop there? & holy shit these creatures have so many teeth!

Immediately upon viewing the first page I knew I had to look up the artist and everything he'd worked on-- what a delightful and unique style that perfectly enlivened this strange story. Like if Lydia Deetz and Maria Llovet had a baby who grew up reading Tank Girl. The cover gallery for this quick adventure (only 3 issues, but the perfect length!) is also downright spine-tingly scary.

The writing was great, and the protagonist's dreaful realizations about the monsters-- dark details he can't explain why he knows but he knows they're true-- built up the creep factor nicely. A little bit of zombie horde, a dash of mythical monster, a heaping of hellgate, it all made for a devilishly delicious read.