Last week, I read My Friend Dahmer, which was a fascinating story about a man before he became a monster. And with that heart warming tale, I’d had enough real life stories to last me awhile. It was time to get back into what makes comic books great… horror stories with bizarre plots, random drug references, and evil rock ‘n’ roll monsters! I was lucky enough to find exactly that in HECTOR UMBRA written and illustrated by Uli Oesterle, published by Blank Slate.

Set in Munich, Hector Umbra’s friend Master DJ Osaka Best has disappeared, mysteriously vanishing in a flash of blinding light during the climax of his set at Robot Mitchum nightclub. Having recently lost his best friend, Hector isn’t about to lose another and starts to track Osaka down. Thus the adventure starts including visits with the dead, paranoid homeless people, and a pack of delusions that are trying to take over the world.

Have you ever wondered what a German Grant Morrison might write? Well look no further because this is the answer. Oesterle also channels his inner Morrison when it comes to whacky ideas and characters. It’s new and novel and fun to read.

Oesterle’s strength is the way in which he manages the mystery of Osaka‘s disappearance. There’s a fine line between incoherent mess and providing the reader with a pile of mixed up puzzle pieces for him/her to figure out. In this case, Oesterle provides a wonderful pile of pieces and then takes you on a wild ride putting it all together. He sets up many an event that seem random and haphazard only to fill in the blanks later. More than once, I found myself thinking back to previous events and going "aaahhhh, I knew that scene/ background image/ exchange was important and now I see what it really meant."

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