Writers: Joe Gentile, Mark Dawidziak
Artists: Trevor Von Eden, Ken Wolak, Dawn Groszewski(c)
Publisher: Moonstone
Joe Gentile and Mark Dawidziak update Kolchak for the twenty-first century, and the revamp I'm sad to say isn't entirely successful. For the entire book, I kept wondering why the hell is INS (Independent News Service) for which Carl Kolchak works based in Los Angeles. Columbo, Angel and Joe Friday operate in Los Angeles. Kolchak belongs in Chicago with INS stuck in an antiquated office building, promising desks not cubicles and certainly not glass partitions. Too much change, too suddenly.
Lambs to the Slaughter has more problems than the face-lift. Carl Kolchak sounds like Hildy from His Girl Friday on speed. With Kolchak constantly yapping away, there's no room for the ominous mood of the television series and his very human reactions to the discovery of an occult world on the fringes of our own modern age. The narration by Carl Kolchak is a little too glib, but mostly more dead on than his dialogue. Artist Trevor von Eden makes him too fidgety. He's in constant motion, and he doesn't have that wonderful shabby body language that Darren McGavin brought to the character. Darren McGavin was actually a rather tall man, but his Kolchak always seemed shorter than everybody else. Kolchak was also an outsider and the butt of jokes. In this book, he is an aggressor--especially toward fellow reporter Ron Updike who usually belittled Carl's ideas. Carl sometimes got even with Ron, but he never started the fight.
Von Eden's artwork elsewhere in the book is more than decent. He captures the likeness of Simon Oakland for Vincenzo, Ron Updike and sometimes Carl himself. I guess Miss Emily is no longer with us. The colorist however annoyingly chooses brown for Carl's reddish hair. The new characters introduced in the book visually and otherwise come off particularly well, and it's nice to see Carl once again portrayed as a ladies man, or at least somebody who can get a date. This aspect was introduced in the original Night Stalker but seldom carried through in the episodes.
The story is well paced and put together with care until the authors reveal the monster. The revelation forces a mythological aspect that does not gibe with the science fiction theme. Because the monster is a product of science fiction and not dark fantasy, it must also seem plausible, but the monster's origin does not make sense when one considers evolution.
What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!