Nancy in Hell

Last week I read Thor vs. Seth, the Serpent God, which was guilty pleasure comic book fun. And because it was such a guilty pleasure, I decided to continue the guilt! I picked the guiltiest looking book I could find and ended up reading NANCY IN HELL, written by El Torres, drawn by Juan Jose Ryp, Antonio Vasquez & Malaka Studio, published by Image Comics. I’d like to tell you I picked this book because of the interesting plot summary on the back of the book, but that would be a lie.

The story opens with a monologue, “Have you ever seen a horror movie from the 80′s? Most of them are about stupid teens camping and being killed one by one. In the end, only the big boobs girl is still alive. And with the biggest stroke of luck… BAM! She kills that bad guy! That’s my story. That’s what happened to me. Well, with a slight difference. I was the girl at the end of the movie… but the bad guy got me instead.” And so we meet Nancy, the protagonist of our tale. Nancy is a new arrival to Hell, and even though she’s managed to keep her mind intact, avoid demons and legions of the damned, and even located a bar full of others who have done the same… she wants out. So she sets out on a quest to escape her fate and maybe with the help of Lucifer, who is just another tortured soul, and her very, very large chainsaw she might make it.

Even though Nancy looks, and was marketed, as complete drivel I knew there was going to be a good story here. I consider El Torres to be one of the better up-and-coming horror writers, and I even talked about him before here. True to my expectations, he didn’t disappoint. Torres makes Nancy more than slasher movie fodder and gives her a strong personality and just enough common sense to make her interesting. At the same time, he portrays Lucifer as the ultimate victim unable to do anything. After too many stories to count where Lucifer is the ultimate trickster, it was a nice change to see him in a different light. Not to mention that the dichotomy between their personalities leads to some great clashes.

Torres also manages to make Hell an interesting setting! Even though there is plenty of fire and brimstone, the motivation behind it is different. The reasons for the things that occur and the happenings are different. This isn’t your Mike Carey/Neil Gaiman version of hell. This is something completely different and that fresh perspective also adds to the fun.

First things first about the art: at no time during any part of the story does Nancy get naked. Nope, not once! In fact, there is very, very little nudity within the book. Most of it can be found in the backgrounds and is more window dressing than titillation. Don’t get me wrong, there are more than enough porn star poses and ripped clothes that cover just enough to make up for it, but no one is ever naked. Although it gets to be quite humorous watching the artists choosing ludicrous camera angles that emphasize particular body parts. Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose this is not.

As expected the art by Juan Jose Ryp is just fantastic. Ryp has an incredibly detailed style and fantastic sense of character design. He crams every panel on every page full of details and it’s that detail that really makes Hell come alive. Unfortunately, Ryp only draws the first two issues before he is replaced by Antonio Vasquez. Vasquez, while a good artist, suffers in comparison. The art goes from being outstanding to just plain good.

I think Rusty said it best here, "The problem with this book is that was there was a plot!" This is one of those rare cases where a book is marketed to be complete fluff, and yet it wasn’t. In fact, it’s a better than average horror story with a pretty good twist ending, even if you can figure it out too soon. If you’re a fan of B-grade horror movies and want to see them in comic book form, then this is a great place to start.

- David Lee