Review: My Date With Monsters
Come on we've all been there. Being single is no joke. For Risa, a single mom with a spirited twelve year old daughter, finding love is a real uphill battle. There are plenty of men out there but they are, it seems, with soul-crushing inevitability, all absolute jerks.
But track down Prince Charming she must, and not just for the sake of her own happiness. The safety of the whole world depends upon it...
Seven years ago she was a scientist in Japan researching dreams. Government sponsors decided that weaponising dreams was the way forward. Why send an assassin to kill the enemy when you can drive him to insanity with his own nightmares? Despite Risa's protestations, the work progressed and a breakthrough was made, but at a price. Forcing open the doorway to the dimension of dreams allowed horrors from the other side to cross over into our reality.
One of those horrors killed Risa's husband in front of her and their daughter Machi. The girl has nightmares about this traumatic event, which amplifies the "Breach", perpetuating the problem. Now living in the US, Risa and Machi are the focus of government efforts to contain the situation.
Risa developed a drug called Blanket that prevents nightmares. Everyone in the world now has to take this drug regularly to prevent monsters from beyond accessing the waking world. Unfortunately, not everyone is totally scrupulous about taking their meds, and breakthroughs still occur. To end the problem permanently, Machi's painful memory of her father's death must be neutralised by the joy of her mother finding a replacement and creating a whole, happy family environment that will make the girl feel safe and secure once more.
Towards this end a team of soldiers has been recruited with the specific goal of winning Risa's heart. Much coaching in romantic conversation skills and erotic technique ensues, but can true love be achieved by such pragmatic methods?
And it's not as if she has much time for dating, what with fending off a never-ending tide of fantastical beasts in a Buffy-esque quest to preserve the innocent. Luckily she has one ally against the rampaging horde: Croak, a hulking grey troll with a human personality, a desire to protect Risa and Machi, plus an insatiable hunger for monsters of any kind.
My Date With Monsters by writer Paul Tobin and artist Andy MacDonald is a comedy thriller that skilfully balances laughs with chills. Machi is a feisty kid, arranging dates for her mother using an app on her phone while chatting with Croak - who would be the perfect match for Risa if only they were the same species.
The monsters are comically grotesque, some more bizarre than others (such as the creature that has a huge cyclopean eye emerging from its anus), but nothing that Risa and Croak cannot handle. Risa's suitors are at least as horrifying: bigots, bores and nerds. Celibacy seems to be her destiny...
Then one day Machi is at school and one of her classmates falls asleep. The other kids find this funny at first... but then it turns out he had been neglecting to take his Blanket pills, and an apparition appears. This creature is tall and gaunt with huge claws, wearing a kabuki mask and exuding an air of sinister creepiness.
It casually kills the teacher and all the children in the classroom except Machi, and then begins taunting her.
This is a new breed of interdimensional predator, one with terrifying powers and a predilection for slaughter. The change of tone here is a satisfying one. As the threat level is elevated so the narrative is expanded from enjoyable cliché to deadly high-stakes peril.
This particular monster is no fleeting dream wraith. Loosed upon the waking world, it soon begins to leave a bloody trail of mayhem in its wake, and plans to do much worse.
Some nightmares cannot be escaped simply by waking up...
MY DATE WITH MONSTERS on Comixology
Zak Webber
Twitter - @sfcomicartist / Instagram - @sfcomicartist
JOIN US ON FACEBOOK! - SCI-FI COMIC NEXUS
*****
***
*
Comments
Post a Comment