The Twisted Dark Journey Across the Atlantic

Among the comics creators planning to display at this past weekend’s Boston Comic Con was Neil Gibson. Unfortunately, the convention was indefinitely postponed because the metro area, as you probably heard, indefinitely shut down the day before.

Very unfortunately, Gibson and his publishing partner had come all the way from the UK with hundreds of copies of his collection Twisted Dark. And they really didn’t want to schlep those books back across the Atlantic. So instead of tabling at the convention, they spent the weekend visiting various comics shops around Boston and giving away copies of the book for free.

I was at stuffed-to-the-ceiling Comicopia in Kenmore Square when the Twisted Dark crew came through, struggling politely to convince store managers that they should take a dozen copies to give away. So out of solidarity I came away with a copy.

Though I’ve scripted a couple of horror stories lately, I’m not really a fan of that mode of fiction. But twist-ending stories are a fine way to develop and demonstrate one’s comics-writing skills. All the tales in Twisted Dark are scripted by Gibson, but the art comes from several artists: Caspar Wijngaard, Atula Siriwardane, Heru Prasetyo Djalal, Jan Wijngaard, Ant Mercer, and Dan West.

I found the first couple of stories to be competent, with a leisurely pace that emphasized mood over plot twists. Since, as I said, I’m not really fond of the horror mode, I wasn’t sure I’d finish the volume soon until I read Erik Sugay’s review for Spandexless and the Comics Alliance, which suggests that it offers more than meets a first glance.

I also checked out Gibson’s comics website and enjoyed ”Hidden Scribbles,” from a series of autobiographical tales of growing up called “The World of Chub Chub.” That’s more what I like.