I like Boneyard. Despite being set largely in a graveyard, and having a cast including a lady vampire, it’s about as far from the current crop of appallingly po-faced, self obsessed Goth comics as you could possibly imagine. On the contrary, Boneyard is a fresh, humourous, well-written and well-drawn black and white comic, the likes of which the industry would be better for having more of.

The story begins with Michael Paris trying to get to the town of Raven’s Hollow, to claim the inheritance left him by his deceased grandfather. His car has broken down, so he’s managed to get a lift there. Or at least to within two miles of it, which is as far as the driver is prepared to take him.

As he looks down the valley to the town, he sees it covered by huge permanent black cloud. Soon enough he find out that his inheritance is a graveyard. The town mayor want to knock it down to build a shopping mall, which Paris agrees with until he meets the graveyard’s residents. These include Abbie, the aforementioned lady vampire; a talking raven called (almost inevitably) Edgar; a cigar smoking, wise cracking skeleton called Sid; a werewolf called Ralph, complete with dark glasses; and numerous other takes on more or less stock horror characters.

The thing is, though, these all have very well defined characters of their own, which are sometimes at odds with their traditional images. Just one for instance: Nessie, who is a kind of female Creature from the Black Lagoon, is a complete flirt, despite having an enormous hulking Frankenstein’s monster of a husband permanently in tow. Anyway, Paris, again almost inevitably, finds himself finally on the side of the monsters, and narrowly averts disaster at the last minute, though not before a showdown with the Devil himself.

Much about this story is pretty much standard stuff, in its own way. However, what makes it stand out is the charm of the characters, and particularly the developing relationship between Michael Paris and Abbie the vampiress. This has a kind of coy sexiness which is very appealing, and which promises substantial storyline payoff in the future. Also, the detailed yet uncluttered artwork is simply some of my favourite black and white work being currently done. This looks all the better for being reproduced in NBMs virtually standard 8” by 12” format, which is substantially bigger than the industry standard 6.5” by 10.25” size. Add to that a few pages of sketches in the back, and this is a genuinely reasonable package at the price.

I look forward to more volumes of Boneyard, as well as anything else by Richard Moore that I can find. If you see a copy, pick it up, or buy a copy for a friend. It’s well worth it, and would make an ideal Christmas present for the comic fan in your life.

Publisher: NBM (US)
Format: 96pp, B/W, 8"X12"
Price: $12.95
ISBN: 156163316X
More Info: Amazon.com / Amazon.ca


Review originally on The Alien Online