It’s a new year, but Poe still has the same snifter full of Death. This month sees Rick Geary’s story “A Tale of the Great Plague,” the next chapter in the “True Tales from the Life of Edgar Allan Poe,” “Werewolf of Washington” by Bryce Ingman and Ryan Kelly, as well as the short prose stories “Hinges” by Ian Cardona and “The Heironymus Bosch Guide to Birds” by James Finn Garner. It’s a very full snifter indeed.
The Good
Rick Geary is always welcome in Poe’s snifter. His style is something else and totally unlike most other comics. His story this month really hits close to home — it manages to be funny despite being about the pandemic, a subject we’ve all heard enough about by now. His art style humanizes the characters, which along with the plot, creates a very empathetic tale. It’s not easy to make an entertaining pandemic story anymore, but Geary has managed it.
“Werewolf of Washington” is a quintessential Snifter story. Political satire by way of a monster. There’s sadly not much more that needs to be said; Ahoy has cultivated a certain tone and Poe’s Snifter really emphasizes that. This story is about as Ahoy as you can get. Certainly with how things are currently going in the UK (while this is a Washington-based tale) there’s an element of necessity with satire that this story fulfills. With the current US President and UK Prime Minister, it would be interesting to see if political satire evolves in any way.
The extras are all as spectacular as ever. Every base is covered. The one-page comic strip by Norm Fields, Joel Ojeda and Juan Castro is the perfect break between two stories of sequential art. The prose from Ian Cardona and James Finn Garner also tick different boxes. Cardona’s story is a great little horror piece that reminds readers of how few prose horror magazines still exist, while Garner’s humor closes the issue on a high that leaves the reader smiling.
The ‘Bad’
Like a broken record, this review will once again say there’s nothing to really complain about. Poe’s Snifter fills a pivotal role in the comic book market. It’s an anthology comic, but on top of that it’s a humor and horror anthology comic. There aren’t many of them out there. The criticisms issue to issue are usually just zeroing in on each story with absurd attention to detail to find a flaw. This month features great stories — what more needs said?
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