So, last night I read volume 1 of Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse, a series by Ben Templesmith, who is also known for 30 Days of Night. I'm not much of a comic reader, though I've been getting into them more often recently; this is one I picked up because I'd seen it mentioned several times by author Jeff VanderMeer on his blog.
The main character of this series is Wormwood, a sentient worm living in the empty eyesocket of a rotting corpse, which it controls telepathically. He hangs out with his clockwork drinking buddy Mr Pendulum in a bar staffed by immortal strippers charged with guarding a dimensional portal. Wormwood isn't a monster hunter--"only a moron would actually go looking for the bloody things"--but he tends to attract "a certain kind of people", so he and Mr P spend a lot of time fighting them, usually involving tentacles.
Volume 1 collects the first four issues of the comic, along with the "issue 0" teaser, altogether forming the storyline for "Birds, Bees, Blood & Beer". I really love Templesmith's artwork in this comic, the style of the drawings and the way he uses extensive layering to give colour and texture in every panel. This comic's full of weird, twisted stuff, and the writing is brilliant--adult themes, very cleverly written and funny as hell in parts (the way the story ends in particular is great).
In all, I enjoyed this a lot, and will soon be purchasing volume 2, "It Only Hurts When I Pee". Highly recommended.
