Remember back in high school when you had to run the eight laps around the track, and though you tried to do it to impress the cheerleaders in your class, you end up saying “screw this, I’ll take the F” around the fourth lap? Or that paper you had to write in college, maybe it was on insomnia, and no matter how hard you tried to write that sucker, you always ended up falling asleep? Fatalism and irony are two forces many succumb to when the going gets tough, and for Dr. Herbert West... add misfortune, misdirection, and insanity to the list.
THE CHRONICLES OF DR. HERBERT WEST – Issue #3
Zenescope Entertainment http://www.zenescope.com/
Written by Joe Brusha
Art by Axel Medellin Machain
I feel for the guy, trying to do right with the gift he has, but no matter how hard he tries, he fails... over and over again. (Cue Hot Chip) What I don’t really feel is the reasoning behind the structure of this comic book series from Zenescope. So far we have three issues in the series, and each one is a carbon copy of another. Kind of like a bet was made to see who could write the best story with the same idea. Dr. West struggles to get his serum to work, his “girlfriend” if you wanna call her that hates life but hopes for the best that he’ll change, some poor sap about to die shows up on Dr. West’s doorstop, in goes the needle, out comes a monster with a bad skin problem and glowing eyes. And the best part? The monster usually takes off and wreaks havoc on the city while Dr. West returns to his office to moisten up his desk calendar with some more defeated tears. It’s a vicious circle, like running that track in high school.
The strange part is that it’s written very well by Joe Brusha. The word choices are excellent and the voice is clear, if not meaningful. You can feel the weight of the words as Dr. West’s assistant describes her displeasure with how he works so hard to fail so miserably every time. She continues to see the good in his work despite the monsters running around, killing innocent people and such. It’s a hard story to write, allowing a character to stay with a tragic hero for so long because of love and determination to change for the better. But at this point in time, she should be nearing the end of her rope, and will make the choice everyone makes in this type of situation very, very soon. Whether or not writer Joe Brusha acknowledges that factor is a true test for him to make this series reach the top of that plotting mountain.
The art lacks bite again as it did from the second issue. The abomination that Dr. West creates in this issue is not very scary, nor effective in displaying what terror he creates when the monster holds a child’s tennis shoe. Artist Axel Medellin Machain really needs to go for it in this shot, even within the limitations of not showing the child and just a shoe; I felt this scene could have been much more in your face terrifying. Instead, I literally made a sound effect when I reached the page looking at the hulking dummy. “Errrrrrrr!” Yeah, so scary, I didn’t have to think twice about changing my underwear; I had to think eleven times. With such great writing, it’s a shame the artist skates through it without really feeling the dramatic action in the storytelling. A decent read on its own, but for those that have read the first two issues and if there’s ever a collected edition, you’ll easily see the replication and recycling of it all. But hey, it’s only gym class, and it’s only one bad grade. There’s always tomorrow to impress those cheerleaders.
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