It’s nearly Halloween in smalltown Missouri, 1983, and local news anchor Jerri Butler’s boozing gets her fired. Out of choices and in need of a job, she accepts the role of host of a cheesy horror movie showcase: Count Crowley. Except she finds out monsters do exist off the TV screen and her real job will be keeping them in check!
I initially ignored this book because it looked like those dodgy comics Dark Horse puts out in abundance like Barb Wire, The Mask, all those terrible video/board game adaptations (Starcraft, Mass Effect, Anthem, Halo, Vox Machina, Dragon Age, et al.), and stuff like Army of Darkness Vs Reanimator (I know this last one is Dynamite but both publishers put out so many Comics That Shouldn’t Be and both start with “D” that I’ve conflated the two in my head). But I remember reading the first ish a while back and I’m glad I circled back and gave the collected edition a shot because Count Crowley: Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter is actually pretty decent.
It’s surprising that this is David Dastmalchian’s first comic because the writing is so solid and the storytelling so confident - it feels like this is someone much more experienced in the driver’s seat. Similarly, why Lukas Ketner isn’t more well-known, I don’t know, because his art is so fantastic that it really puts this comic over the top. The high quality art and mix of fun/dark writing reminded me very strongly of Eric Powell’s comics so I can see why this title wound up at his former publisher.
Jerri isn’t the most original character - she’s your average takin’-no-shit-strong-female-character you’ve seen a hundred times before - nor is the whole monster hunter trope new. The monsters are genre staples - the werewolf, the Frankenstein’s monster - and of course there’s the older chap with the books to tell our protagonist/audience all the info necessary at the right time, and even supply her with the magical weapon to take on her foes (because old folks’ homes are famous for allowing weapons storage in their residents’ closets).
Everything about this book screams Buffy the Vampire Slayer: similar protagonist doing similar things, the small town that just happens to be where all the monsters are appearing, the elderly chap with the books on how to defeat the monster of the week, and there’s even a vampire big bad hinted at behind it all. Even Jerri’s brother Ben gives off strong Xander vibes.
That said, Jerri’s a likeable lead and I was rooting for her from the start, and she has a reasonable but predictable character arc. The wry sense of humour throughout is appealing and gives the story style, and, despite the lack of narrative tension and a bunch of obvious jump scares, I did want to see what was going on in smalltown Missouri and where it’s all headed. There’s a lot here that’s generic and yet the book’s never boring either, so Dastmalchian’s doing something right. The fact that the writer also has experience with addiction (which he mentions in an afterword) lends weight to Jerri’s struggle to achieve sobriety.
Count Crowley: Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter is another Buffy clone but not a bad one for that - it’s worth checking out if you’re a Buffy or Eric Powell fan. It definitely had its enjoyable moments - count me in for the next Count Crowley book!
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