Monster (2016)

Monster (2016)

Authors: Alan Moore / Alan Grant / John Wagner  |  Illustrators: Heinzl / Jesus Redondo
Page Count: 192

'One metre. Was that enough? Should it be deeper? Kenneth Corman wasn't sure. He was only twelve. He'd never buried anyone before.'

Beneath the 2000 AD logo you used to find the words 'The Galaxy's Greatest Comic.' I can't comment on whether or not that's still the case, but in the mid-nineties I'd have agreed wholeheartedly with the statement. But Monster wasn't a 2000 AD strip, it was from a short-lived British anthology comic named Scream!, so why would Rebellion, current owners of 2000 AD, choose to release it?

I don't know. Perhaps because it was written by three of their greatest writers and has been undeservedly out of print for over thirty years!? Whatever the reason, I'm sure glad it happened.

The Scream! comic lasted just fifteen issues (from 24th March 1984 to 30th June 1984) before mysteriously disappearing from the shelves. I know firsthand the confusion and disappointment felt by readers at the time because I was one.

I still have all fifteen issues stored somewhere in a dark and rarely frequented cupboard under a flight of stairs, but they're in bad shape and like an idiot I'd cut the back page off many of them to make the large and gruesome poster they gave us a single piece of each week.

I've forgotten a lot of what I read back then, but two stories in particular burned their way into my memory and remained. Even now, decades later, I can recall specific panels from both strips. Monster was one, the other was The Thirteenth Floor. The latter was undoubtedly the comic's crowning glory, and I found out just a few days ago that parts of it got a reprint a while back that is now OOP. Dammit! If Rebellion are reading (they're not, but what the hell?) please do the same for The Thirteenth Floor as you did for Monster. It'll make my year!

To return to the topic at hand, Monster was an ongoing story that never got a chance to finish. Except it did because, unbeknownst to many fans, including myself, it was continued in Eagle comic, home of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, and a publication that I didn't buy. My local shop didn't even stock it. So, thirty-two years later I finally got to finish reading the Monster story.

That lengthy buildup has maybe made the strip sound a lot better than it is. If it was serialised today for the first time it might not make even a ripple in the horror comic scene. But to a young lad back in 1984 it really impressed and, in retrospect, was my introduction to all three of the authors a few years before I even discovered the magic of 2000 AD.

I've avoided mentioning anything about the actual plot for a reason, because I feel it's best experienced firsthand, but I'll say that it borrows a few things from Mary Shelly's gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein (1818), and perhaps because of that influence it unfolds slowly, in an almost sophisticated manner. It has its fair share of action scenes (and much death) and cliffhangers but the real focus is a study of human nature and of the places where one can find it.

The new TPB is the same size as Rebellion's previous 2000 AD collections, so will shelve nicely beside them. In order to make that happen the original Scream! pages are positioned inside a sizeable white border at both the top and bottom of the page. Included at the end of the book are three text stories that appeared in the Scream! Holiday Specials (1986, 1987, 1988).

NOTE: if you're interested in the book because it has Alan Moore's name attached, then you should know that he wrote the first chapter only and that chapters are just three or four pages long. But Grant and Wagner are masters of their craft, too, so there's still plenty of good stuff.