In this week’s instalment of The Goggler Pull List, we review the horror anthology comic The Silver Coin and the Comixology Original, Savage Game.
The Silver Coin (Michael Walsh, Chip Zdarsky, Kelly Thompson, et al.)
There’s a thing with anthology comics. What may seem like a great idea at first can vary wildly in quality of delivery. And The Silver Coin is a great example of this.
Built on the simple idea of a cursed silver dollar coin, each issue of The Silver Coin is brought to us by some of the best comic writers of the generation: Chip Zdarsky, Kelly Thompson, Ed Brisson, Jeff Lemire, and Michael Walsh, who draws all the art for the entire series.
Each issue tells a different short story, all revolving around this one silver coin that has made its way through multiple hands, causing misery, murder, and death at each stop. The problem is that of the five issues that have been released, some fare better than others at building a story around the cursed coin.
The first issue in the series, written by Chip Zdarsky, really does a great job in building the powers of the coin, how it affects the owner, and how it demands a blood sacrifice. Zdarsky sets up the entire mythology of the coin, ready for the other writers to carry it on, but despite the pedigree of writers that take on the following issues, the coin itself seems to fall a little by the way side. The need to get to the horrific outcomes don’t do enough in taking up the building blocks that Zdarsky has put down.
Issue 2, titled “Girls of Summer,” is about a girl who goes to summer camp and is bullied by the other kids. She runs off into the woods, finds the coin upon a blood altar, and goes on a murdering spree.
Issue 3, written by Ed Brisson, does the same thing. We meet three robbers on a job, they accidentally murder the victim, and get into a high speed chase with the police. One of the robbers, having grabbed the coin from the victim, ends up murdering her accomplices and running into the woods where she is received by spirits.
Issue 4, by Jeff Lemire, feels like the most out of place in the entire series. Jumping into the future, it tells the story of a dystopian society and, again, another robbery. After, yet another, high speed chase with the police, one of the robbers stumbles on to an old forgotten part of town, finds the coin, and then goes to murder the police officer chasing her.
I’m being very short with these descriptions because I felt a little shortchanged. That was until we got to Issue 5, which was written by series creator Michael Walsh himself. Zdarsky’s opening issue really set the tone for the series for me, a tone that was largely ignored by following three issues, until Michael Walsh picked it back up and reeled me back in. Issue 5 jumps all the way back to the 1600’s and the witch that started the curse.
The Silver Coin started off as a five issue run. But following a tremendous reception from the public, publisher Image Comics has converted the comic to an ongoing series. There is a strong idea behind The Silver Coin, but so far, it’s been something of a mixed bag for me.
Savage Game (Shawn Kittelsen, Chris B. Murray)
Shawn Kittelsen’s Comixology Original, Savage Game ends on a cliffhanger. Which is a little annoying seeing as how much these 60 pages do to tease out an incredibly interesting world.
Conner and his father Howard Bowen have a rocky relationship, in that they haven’t spoken in the ten years since the passing of Conner’s mother. In that time, Howard, a bioengineering genius, has gone on to build an island for himself out in international waters in order to allow himself, and his team of scientists, to create things that most governments, and society at large, would not approve of.
Howard Bowen isn’t building the latest doomsday weapon. He’s trying to solve the world’s big problems. A reprogrammed HIV strain to eat cancer cells. A drought resistant tomato made by splicing animal DNA with plant DNA to help eradicate iron deficiency in developing nations. A genetic memory project to access ancestral memories of humanity. You know, the kind of thing the FDA would bristle against.
The problem with solving all of humanity’s big problems is that it costs money. And to that end, Howard Bowen has decided to get into the entertainment business. The gladiatorial entertainment business to be precise. Think Formula 1, but with nations financing fighters instead of cars, Howard Bowen has taken the idea of gene splicing to the next level. This isn’t a Jurassic Park style Indominus Rex. This is The Savage Game. Lab created apex predators designed to kill, face off with one another to fight to the death for the entertainment (and profit) of Bowen and his labs, to better finance all the future research the organization hopes to do to tackle the world’s big problems.
Of course, just like Jurassic Park, something goes wrong, the apex predators get out, and mayhem ensues. But Savage Game never gets there in these 60 pages. Savage Game feels like the first act of a traditional three act story. The comic ends at the point of the inciting incident, just as our protagonist answers the call to adventure. We don’t, however, get to see the payoff.
The unfortunate thing is that I don’t know if we ever will. Savage Game was released exclusively on Comixology in June 2018 and, three years later, there still is no word on whether or not there will be a follow up.
Shawn Kittelsen’s Savage Game isn’t new. It’s familiar. It’s very much in the vein of The Island of Doctor Moreau with its ideas. Savage Game is interesting in its concept, a genius bioengineer engineers hybrid animals for entertainment, but all for the greater good. It’s a great read. So here’s hoping we get to see how the story ends.
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