Comicon Advent Calendar Day 15: ‘Four Gather On Christmas Eve’

Welcome to the table,

It’s that time of year that Saint Nick has put out the call for holiday-themed comics. I am always hard-pressed this time of year to find things that fit the theme without being overly kind to the vile old elf and his toymaking minions. Four Gather On Christmas Eve from Dark Horse Comics does make for some great reading, though, so I think it more than fits into the assignment.

Let’s get into it.

Four Gather On Christmas Eve is akin to ordering one menu item from four restaurants you really like and then getting a free order of waffle fries from the best waffle fries place on top of it.

From the foreword, it seems the wildly talented Eric Powell wanted to capture the spirit of those Victorian-era social gatherings where people would gather together to tell ghost stories over Christmas Eve. After reading it, I think he has captured the tone and spirit of things, pardon the pun, perfectly.

The foreword opens with a group of three arriving during a snowstorm at a large manor house in London in Christmas of 1843. The three are analogs of Mike Mignola, Becky Cloonan, and James Harren. The house they show up at is owned by Powell, and the quartet, in their own charming and slightly unhinged way, start to relax and enjoy each other’s company, sharing ghost stories around a cup of Christmas cheer as it were.

It’s a delightfully clever framing device in my humble opinion. I’ve always had a soft spot for horror hosts, and here these icons of the medium slip effortlessly into that role. They are clad in Victorian trappings, and as the narrative unfolds, they become both storytellers and the story itself. Avatars of the tales they’re about to tell and guides for the readers into the season’s darker delights with warmth, wit, and just a dash of menace twinkling in their eyes.

The first tale told is “The Eyes in the Primordial Dark”, by Powell, with art by Harren, colors by Dave Stewart, and letters by Comicraft. The story follows Dr. Waldorf Horner and Nevil Phillips, who board a retrofuture, dare I say steampunk in style, spaceship, and head off on a cosmic odyssey. Dr. Horner is the aristocrat who raised the money for the starships’ construction, and Nevil is the engineer who built the craft and keeps it running on their journey. Of course, coming from different social classes, Dr. Horner’s awful classist behaviors come out as he orders Nevil around, eventually causing the two to class. While this is happening, though, both of them, the only two on the ship, begin to encounter strange and unexplained events, crafting an atmosphere of tension.

The story has a very Poe-eqsue Tell-Tale Heart tone to it, and the payoff is quite nice. It’s hard to beat Harren’s visuals when they are brought to play in this kind of setting, and Stewart’s colors are next level. I won’t spoil the ending, but it feels very at home in this collection.

The next offering, “The Kelpie”, is from Cloonan, with letters by Comiccraft and colors by Stewart. The way this one opens is brilliant, a poem that leads into an onomatopoeia, which turns into the story narrative, then back into a poem. There are so many layers here.

For those who do not travel the strange pathways of this world, a Kelpie is a water-based spirit who takes the form of a black horse and tricks kids into getting onto its back so it can take them into the water and drown them. Sometimes it can take the form of a woman and lure men onto the horse to meet a watery doom. In this story, the specter takes the form of a man who entices a woman to her demise. It’s a really solid ghost story, very visual, and it has some solid writing. I love the way everything feels murky and slightly liquid across the pages.

The next offering is “Night of the Jaberwok” by Mignola with letters by Richard Starkings and colors by David Stewart. It’s a story within a story, within a story, because it is Mignola, telling a story of a man telling a story to his younger family members about a time in his youth where he found himself in a surreal landscape fighting the Jaberwok.

The visual lines of this story are brilliant and dreamlike in true Mignola fashion, and the narrative is none other than Lewis Carroll’s poem The Jabberwoky from his novel Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.

There are shadows, a sword, weird animals, things in jars, a witch, and a magic bell that brings everything crashing down. It’s like Mignola played Mad-libs with his own hallmarks, and it works because, of course, it works. It’s amazing, and I love it.

The last offering in this edition is by Powell and is titled “The Gift of Major Courtenay”. It follows Reginald Sallow, the lord of Sallow Manor. Reginald’s companion Lewis joins him at his family home, but early on in the story sees a very haunting apparition, and from that point forward, Lewis stays in a tent outside the manor, refusing to go inside but also refusing to leave. The story takes some fun turns and finishes nicely, and then we are treated to one last bit of macabre menace from our horror hosts before the tale of terrible tidings draws to a close.

It’s one of those books that is fun to have on the shelf because you know the visual and narrative storytelling are going to be the benchmark of solid when you flip through them and in a lot of weird ways, for someone who loves these kinds of comics and the creators who make them, it feels like spending a quiet night at home with friends when I read it.

Until next time, be kind to the goose… it’s seen some stuff.