Advance Review: ‘Swallower Of Shades’ #1 Leaves Readers Hanging
by Tom Smithyman
From That Texas Blood to Canary, comics books that mix Westerns with horror have grown in popularity lately. A new series from Dead Sky Publishing is trying to capitalize on that popularity – with marginal success.
The anthology series that goes by the forbidding name A Splatter Western One-Shot kicks off with a story called Swallower of Shades. It’s set up as a Twilight Zone episode, complete with a cowboy playing the narrator role perfected by that series’ creator, Rod Serling. The unnamed omniscient guide walks us through the story of an old-time freakshow owner who wins an Egyptian mummy in a poker game (the fact that he won with a dead man’s hand of black aces and eights should have given him pause).
The mummy, known as the swallower of shades and whiter of teeth, has a hunger for human flesh, so each night it must kill fresh prey. It finds a veritable smorgasbord among the bearded lady, the strongman and the alligator boy. Add in a sheriff with self-esteem issues, and you have a quirky story.
Writer JM Brandt takes readers through this fairly familiar tale. The Old West setting is a different one — if not for the recent other series that deal with similar topics. The doubting sheriff is a nice touch, but with only one issue to tell the story and lots of other characters to introduce, Brandt doesn’t have the time to do him real justice. It would be interesting to see the sheriff back in a later installment of the story, though that doesn’t seem likely.
Artist Tom Napolitano illustrates the black-and-white rogues’ gallery. Carnivals and their acts are generally viewed as exploitative today, and even the word freakshow is considered offensive, but Napolitano’s depictions treat the subjects with some level of respect. That is, until he shows the mummy killing them. It’s quite violent at times, but the lack of color helps to temper any out-and-out gore.
This story ending is largely unresolved, which is likely to leave most readers feelings unsatisfied. Perhaps the creative team will try to revisit the Swallower of Shades another time – though whether there will be an audience is a different question.
Swallower of Shades #1 will be available for purchase on October 18, 2023.
Overview
Mixing genres can lead to great results. Recent history has shown a lot of success with horror stories set in the Old West. This tale tries to do that, but achieves only limited success with a bloodthirsty mummy terrorizing an Old West carnival.
