Gail Williams thinks twice about carving that pumpkin.
In issue one of Blood And Gourd we saw both a corporate takeover and a pumpkin-kind take over at the Henderson Farm. Issue two goes back to the very start. A lowly pumpkin farmer is unable to keep his family fed, so he carves a pumpkin with arcane symbols, fills it with blood and buries it. Let’s face it, that is not going to result in anything good is it? And it doesn’t. Alabaster’s soul is anything but that colour - white that is, alabaster is white.
Jump back to ‘today’, and the havoc of Henderson Farm.
Okay, American Halloween OTT is one thing but this time we’ve got the redneck guns-blazing stupidity to deal with too. One lucky soul gets a bullet to the brain, which is better than a pumpkin chomping through your cranium I guess - quicker anyway. The fool who claims “They’re. Just. Veg’tables!” doesn’t last long either. The guests are running, and running each other over to get out.
Kitty’s in shock, and even Mason’s unicorn knows this is bad. Stemhead is demanding genuflection, “serve willingly or cease to exist entirely.” I have to say I love Stemhead. So brilliantly drawn.
In the woods Turkeyneck and Vernon are fighting, snapping stems and squishing pumping heads. I love Vernon’s inside the gourd thinking for survival.
Mr Pleasant is getting greedy too. As they head for the greenhouse, they are gathering up eyes, ears, hearts and tongues - oh and one little Cinderella who’s going to the basement. Then there’s the ring of executives who are about to sacrifice more to the cause…
I love this comic!
This second issue has been a long time coming, but it was well worth the wait. The quality of the artwork and colouring on this issue is noticeably better to than on issue one, which was already good. This time, though, there is more depth and life (and death come to that), plus a greater sense of action. The very last page offers an expansion to the story and I can’t wait to see what happens with that particular tendril.
After the comic is over there are two artwork pages from Todd Shearer, a black and white then colour full page of Stemhead himself - beautiful!
Blood and Gourd is fun to read and a great comic for Halloween. There’s still time to download this issue and read it on the big spooky night itself. Head over to bloodandgourd.com to find out more.
Gail Williams lives in her own private dungeon populated with all the weird and
the wonderful she can imagine. Some of it’s very weird, and the odd bits
and pieces are a bit wonderful. Well okay, she lives in Swansea with
her husband and daughter. And the world’s most demanding cat. To find
out more about Gail, check out www.gailbwilliams.co.uk - Dare you!
I wish for the great of success in all of our destiny endeavors
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