Written by Drew Edwards
Published by Sugar Skull Media
And here we have another issue of Halloween Man, featuring stories mostly written by series creator Drew Edwards and drawn by various artists. The first story is THE BOMBSHELL EXPERIMENT. Following up from the events of the previous issue, Lucy is shown dealing with the public perception of her new overweight figure by embracing it, becoming a plus-sized model and appearing on the covers of multiple fashion magazines. Solomon gets a little uncomfortable with all of this extra attention she’s getting. Of course, this being Solar City, things get weird. At a charity benefit Lucy gets kidnapped by female religious cult who worship Adonis and want to sacrifice Lucy to their God. Edwards turns the tables on us in this story, as you’d expect it to be about Solomon rescuing her, but Lucy proves to be no stereotypical Damsel in Distress, and is capable of saving herself just fine. This story features some more discussion of Lucy’s appearance and the way women are objectified by the media and society. It’s a good story and, like before, I appreciate the positive message that Edwards is attempting to convey here, but part of me hopes that he doesn’t feel the need to address Lucy’s weight in every issue now. I kind of feel that it almost defeats the purpose of saying that this doesn’t change who Lucy is on the inside if you’re going to keep focusing on it. On the other hand, the series has always had an underlying theme of fighting against discrimination and prejudice, via Solomon’s status as a half-zombie, so I guess it fits. Sergio Calvet draws this story and does his usual great job illustrating it.
Next up is NECROMANTIC, a 3-page story drawn by the one and only Nicola Scott, showing us how Lucy and Solomon first met (in a graveyard, naturally) years ago, back when he was still human. It’s a nice story that also shows them dealing with prejudice.
FROST ON THE PUMPKIN, BLOOD IN THE PIE is a 2-part horror story, co-written with editor Russell Hillman, about a malignant spirit the possesses an innocent man and forces him to do horrible things, before setting its sights on Solomon. This is a much violent and bloody story than is typical in this series, but I’m not complaining. It’s very intense, I loved it. Michael Henderson handles the art-chores on this one, and depicts the gore beautifully.
As usual there are some extras in this issue, including extra pin-ups by Sergio Calvert and Terry Parr, plus an INSIDE SOLAR CITY AND BEYOND feature containing character sheets with some background information, drawn by Nicola Scott, Terry Parr and Michael Murphy. Altogether this makes Halloween Man #4 a very satisfying package.
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