Cryptids are creatures that may or may not exist because while there’s “evidence” it’s mostly either hearsay or terrible-quality photos/videos. That doesn’t stop people from writing stories about them. “Ahoy Comics” has a new series about cryptids called “Project: Cryptid.”
The first story, “Ballroom of Death” by Mark Russell and artist Jordi Perez, sees an adventurer scaling Mount Everest with two guides. The guides warn him that scaling the mountain via the “Ballroom of Death” path is dangerous. He tells them to take him on that path. There isn’t much to this story, just schadenfreude. The artwork is ugly. Not that it’s poorly drawn, but that the characters and everything else are not pleasing to look at.
“Wormy and Me” by Paul Cornell and artist PJ Holden sees a former soldier turned LAPD who was saved by and befriended a giant man-eating worm in the Middle East. He now has to live and work with this giant worm, and even meet some other cryptids and people interested in them. It’s a weird satire story that may make sense to some and in a way makes fun of the cryptid scene. The artwork makes the humans look OK but the monsters have an interesting quality to them,
Finally, there’s the short story “Partially Naked Came the Corpse, Part 1” by Grant Morrison. It’s about a detective named Slim Jim who gets invited to a detective’s club where he meets a bunch of colorful characters while sitting at the bar of the hotel. It reads like a pulp story full of purple prose, weird descriptions and what seems like a stream of conscience that makes the story make little sense. It’s weird in that you know there’s supposed to be a detective story here, but it’s bogged down by weird things happening left and right that it gets exhausting after a while.
“The first issue of “Project: Cryptid” is decent for what is there. The plots for all three are decent enough though nothing to praise as is the art. There’s plenty of room for improvement with the stories and the choice of monsters and settings.
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