The Horror! The Horror!: Creepy Comics, Annabelle, & Ash Vs. The Evil Dead

Finally! An ongoing monthly article that makes you face the monsters in the closet. You can run, but you can't hide from our selected ghoulish items in PREVIEWS that will make you flee and scream bloody murder. Horror fiends: let the madness begin! This is the run-down on what ghastly items can be found in this month's PREVIEWS catalog. If you can't take the chills, TOO BAD! This is where the children of the night gather, and howl at the moon without apology.

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We'd be lying to you if we said there was an absence of evil chuckles this month. Every time we turned the pages of the April PREVIEWS, we thought we had died and gone to horror heaven. So it is our job to bring you this month's cyanide citrus drink, shaken not stirred, so that you can greet the Spring with a nice cool drink, clueless about the poison that will push its way down your esophagus.

Horror comics are, of course, a staple for any comic book store. They've been around since the "pre-codes" in the 1950s when they created many fans of colored coffin capers. Beyond those days when so many stories seduced the innocent, later-released books picked up the tradition of ghastly horror, but they found their way into black-and-white magazines printed on newsprint. And because all things come to pass, those publications as well eventually crumbled into dust. They're now residents of back issue boxes. But the tradition of entertaining you with tales about the terrible continue with Dark Horse's Creepy Comics #24 (APR160091). The cover of this book alone will make your blood freeze, but the real headline is that Richard Corben is one of the creepy contributors for the issue. Corben is a legend in horror comics, and is unquestionably responsible for inspiring many creators to follow suit in creating creepy chaos for comics.

An example of how the fruit doesn't fall far from the dead tree would be to see how Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil follow Corben into Hell with their latest issue of Cinema Purgatorio #2 (APR161287). This book from Avatar Press is rendered in stark moody black & white, with every page filled with visions from minds of creators who dare to carve their thoughts and linework on moldy putrid paper. Similar slime creeps around the corners of Action Lab's Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Living Undead #1 (APR161112), in which zombies attack a local festival, and a group of misfits may be the only thing standing between the citizens of Full Moon Hollow and an undead munchfest.

We can see how you're the type that rubbernecks on the freeway when there's dead bodies on the pavement. You don't care how they got there, do you? You just wonder if the bodies have gone cold yet. Well, if you're looking for a dead human collection, you can also check out the movie tribute found in Cullen Bunn's Death Trap #1 (APR161793) for Lion Forge, which throws compassion to the wind in exchange for a death factor familiar to fans of classic 80 slasher films.

Misery loves company, you know, so let's stay focused on the present day, where Maria Diaz (a U.S. soldier) returns from Afghanistan to be reunited with her family on the Mexican holiday. But there's little time to celebrate, as she and her family are turned into target practice for a death-worshipping crime cartel led by the nefarious Mama Z.

After Maria awakens from a coma, she's decided to paint her face to look like a skull to help her lose her humanity. Does this make her murder spree easier? Well, pick up La Muerta Descent #1 (APR161491) from Coffin Comics to find out!

Whew.

That's a lot of comics to read now, isn't it?

How do you plan to keep track of when those books will be spilling onto the street?

With calendars, of course.

In case you didn't know this, but PREVIEWSworld lets you know when books and merchandise are arriving in stores. So, armed with that info, get in front of things for next year and pick up horror-themed timekeepers like The Walking Dead AMC 2017 16-Month Wall Calendar (APR162276).

Don't say we never gave you a helping hand, which is all that Ash ever wanted in Evil Dead 2. You know, the classic Sam Raimi movie? That film to this day still entertains horror buffs, which is why the green light for the Starz TV series Ash vs. Evil Dead was a no-brainer.

It's not a hard decision to make either to grab the Ash Vs. Evil Dead 7-Inch Series 1 Action Figures (JAN168354), as this show's popularity is going to grow faster than weeds in a cemetary.

Not to mention the dead things in that show are sure to spill into our world any day now, so you'll be thankful for the Hero Ash figure tht comes with two interchangeable head sculpts, alternate mechanical hand, and shotgun that fits in a back holster.

Before we leave you to suffer in silence (is that citrus drink starting to make things blurry now?), we want to know that quite a few horror-themed toys that are not for tots can be found throughout the April PREVIEWS catalog, and they would include among other things the Annabelle Doll Prop Replica (APR162807).

Fans of The Conjuring and its sequel will love how this 18-Inch doll doesn't miss a detail, from her sinister grin, to her film matched clothing, to the malevolent gleam in her cold dead eyes.

Let it be the last thing you see as you feel your throat starts to tighten from that cyanide.

Who loves a happy ending anyway?

See you next month, fiends.

Maybe.