To Read & To Write

After reading and loving Hack/Slash Omnibus Volume 1, I decided I might as well purchase Hack/Slash Omnibus Volume 2. It was definitely worth my money. I’ve heard that many comics struggle to keep audience attention after their first release. One theory is that perhaps since the second release is, many times, no longer an “origin story”, writers begin to lose the sense of plot, and thus character development suffers as well. This is not the case for Hack/Slash.  Cassie Hack returns with a vengeance, still side-by-side with Vlad, the monstrous but gentle man (if not engaged in a fight) that she calls her friend. There are eleven stories presented in this volume, and they run together seamlessly. Cassie and Vlad continue to fight the slashers (a.k.a. Revenants) as this is their raison d’etre; they would like to save as many people as possible from the hands of these reanimated, angry, corpses. Cassie and Vlad encounter a psychotic psychologist, a rock and roll band that has sold ...

I picked up a library copy of Hack Slash Omnibus Volume 1. Someone had recently returned it, and I couldn’t help but notice the striking cover: a girl, possibly in her late teens to mid-twenties, staring fiercely with her intense blue eyes at something, her shoulder length straight dark brown hair covering her right eye. And yes, she is wearing revealing clothing, but there’s nothing uncomfortably sexual about it (from my subjective perspective) – the girl, whose name is Cassandra Hack, is sitting in a position that isn’t very ladylike. Her legs are spread, knees up, and her right arm rests on her right leg, this hand holding baseball bat that hangs downward with the words Kiss It etched on it. She’s wearing plaid knee-high socks, a black pleated skirt with a belt of steel with the emblem FaQ at the buckle. Her midriff shows, and she’s wearing a short, netted halter-top. Her arms are covered up to the elbows with long striped tube socks, which she has made into fingerless gloves. He...