Nocturnals - by Dan Brereton

Mixing gumshoe pulp noir with Lovecraftian horror themes to create his own fantastic alternate universe, Dan Brereton’s Nocturnals graphic novels have set their own unique bar for style. Created, written, and illustrated single-handedly by Brereton, each of his moody hand-painted panels drips with classic horror mixed with gun-toting gangster retro. This single man puts most teams of writers/pencilers/colorists to shame.

The story of Nocturnals began with a 6 part series called “Black Planet” that was originally published in 1994 and collected together in 1998’s “Nocturnals Volume One: Black Planet“. It was also recently reprinted in hardback along with bonus short stories as “Nocturnals Volume One: Black Planet and Other Stories“. It opens with a young reptile man named Komodo who is escaping from the multinational Narn K Corporation, where cruel and unusual tests have been performed on him along with his fellow prisoners. Komodo is wounded and backed up against the wall by his pursuers, and all seems lost until a strange hulking undead gun-slinger appears from the shadows to help him get away. Komodo is taken to a safe haven called The Tomb, the underground headquarters of a team of frightful crimefighters, including:
Doc Horror, former criminal and brilliant inventor who leads his crew in the fight for good, despite his own dark secrets
Polychrome, a sexy and pale pacifist lady wraith with mystical powers including healing and illusion
Starfish, beautiful half-woman half-amphibian whose wit is as quick as her draw
Firelion, a male pyrokinetic firestarter who prefers japanese swords to guns
Eve, (AKA Halloween Girl, AKA Evening), Doc Horror’s daughter who can communicate with demonic toys that grow into giants and obey her command
The Gunwitch, a mute zombie bodyguard for Eve and the same undead gun-slinger that saved Komodo.

Komodo joins Doc Horror and crew in their battle against the evil Narn K Corporation that experimented on him. They team up along the way with another half-man-half-beast called “The Raccoon”, also a victim of the Narn K’s twisted experiments. Together the group of monstrous misfits battle everything from cyborg henchmen to squid monsters straight out of an H.P. Lovecraft story in a quest to protect themselves and the citizens of Pacific City.

Eve and Gunwitch practically steal the show, providing Nocturnals some of its grisliest as well as warmest moments. Their popularity caught on so much that later stories such as “Witching Hour“, “Troll Bridge” and “The Gunwitch: Outskirts of Doom” focus almost exclusively on the adventures of the two together. Their relationship is very affectionate, as are the relationships among all the creepy crew members. They are more of a family than they are a gang or a hard-boiled crime-fighting team, and they are more human than the humans.

After “Black Planet“, the story of Doc Horror and crew was continued in “Nocturnals: The Dark Forever“. Eve, now several years older, is on vacation from boarding school and travels home to be with her extended family. Yet upon her return, to her dismay she finds her toys won’t talk to her anymore. She also finds her father’s obsession with some excavated ruins much to her disliking, especially when another young girl somehow emerges from the ruins and seems intent on stealing him from her! Events quickly escalate into an intense battle between the crew and a sudden outbreak of zombies and ghosts, not to mention scary monks and a leviathan creature from the depths of the ocean!

All Nocturnals comics and graphic novels are top quality and if you haven’t read them or don’t own them you are really missing out… but some, such as “Troll Bridge“, are not illustrated by Dan Brereton himself, and thus lose a tiny bit of the Nocturnals magic. I recommend first and foremost to begin at the beginning with “Black Planet“, you won’t be disappointed. Next I recommend following up with “The Dark Forever“, then “Witching Hour“, then “The Gunwitch: Outskirts of Doom“.

Posted in: Horror Comics »  by: Morbidementia