Steve Niles is the writer of the hit comic 30 Days of Night and the Cal McDonald horror/noir novels, Savage Membrane and Guns, Drugs and Monsters. Niles is also the writer of the monthly comic book Dark Days for IDW Publishing. Steve got his start in the industry when he formed his own publishing company called Arcane Comix, where he published, edited, and adapted several comics and anthologies for Eclipse Comics. His adaptations include works by Clive Barker, Richard Matheson and Harlan Ellison. He has also worked as a writer for Todd MacFarlane Productions and Image comics, creating the series Fused, and contributing to titles such as Spawn: The Dark Ages, Hellspawn, and most recently 9-11: Artists Respond.
| ||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Max Payne meets Underworld, but even better!,
By OverTheMoon (overthemoonreview@hotmail.com) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery (Dark Horse Comics Collection) (Paperback)
Produced in 2003/2004 by Dark Horse Comics, the full color "Criminal Macabre", part of the Cal McDonald mystery series is already a classic collector's item for anyone interested in seeing the state of modern 21st century horror graphic novels. At 160 pages that makes it about the same size as a good "Preacher" graphic novel and is well worth checking out to see if a new horror series would interest you, besides the real reason to get "Criminal Macabre" in particular out of all the Cal McDonald series books by Steve Niles, is for Ben Templesmith's artwork, probably some of the most adventurous for any graphic novel you have ever seen, and certainly the most horror-apt as most are claiming, including a brief introduction by Rob Zombie, more fantastic than very detailed, mostly silver grey blurred backgrounds with realistic blood smears and rust, the characters made up of blurs and harsh edges, is lively, horrific, dashy and raw, however "Criminal Macabre" offers lots of funny breaks that tone down the violence, which is actually quite heavy, venturing sometimes into the obscene, not the scary kind, more fantasy vampire blow-up deaths like at the end of the movie "Blade", you will be hard pushed to be anything less than amazed at what you are seeing, the story is actually quite good when compared to movies like "Underworld", reality is you should be checking out this amazing storyboard instead.
"Criminal Macabre" does something interesting for a graphic novel. It pits Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies and Mad Scientists against our hero detective cop, Cal McDonald, and his unofficial ghoul partner Mo'Lock, to get on the case of what appears to be new breeds of harder and bigger monsters trying to take over the city using the Ghoul's underground sewerage network as a means to raid specimens of the Plague from a dangerous virus research lab, so that they can create more monsters to rule the world, giving you everything that could hope for in a Monster Squad graphic novel like this one, except for total realism, if you are looking for that then sadly you should go elsewhere, the plot is not always incredible logical, as with the "Preacher" series at times, but we could crib about that if it wasn't for the exceptional artwork that blows any inconvenience anyway. Like I said, Max Payne meets Underworld. Steve Niles has other Cal McDonald detective graphic novels if you venture around. As of yet although there does not appear to be a sequel to this comic at this time of writing (even though #1 is on the side) there is obviously maybe a future Templesmith Niles Cal McDonald collaboration, however right now they are cooking up other themes to check out - "30 Days of Night" and "Dark Days". You can also get many other Steve Niles' Cal McDonald graphic novels by other artists, I may check out some of the other work there later, but I am more pushed to look at their other collaborations outside of Cal McDonald for the time being and certainly I would like to get hold of Steve Nile's "Remains", but my advise would be more inclined to offer you to collect the "Best of" graphic novels first (and this is one of them) before venturing further. Dark Horse also has some other interesting offerings that I might check out, but in the meantime Templesmith certainly makes this one a major piece of art that blows away most who view it. "Criminal Macabre" is a wonderful effort and a nice addition to the genre of hardcore horror /comedy graphic novels. Get it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
X-Files + Sin City + Underworld = Criminal Macabre,
By
This review is from: Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery (Dark Horse Comics Collection) (Paperback)
Nothing less than THE best horror comic I've read in over a year, Criminal Macabre outshines it's distant cousins, 30 Days of Night and Dark Days. Though they are good, solid comics, this is so much more than that. It's created out of love, and it shows.
The story revolves around a down on his luck supernatural private detective Cal McDonald, who finds himself in the middle of a gang war between various monsters. The story unfolds quickly, sucking you in. Once you start reading this, it's impossible to set down. Though the subject and the monsters are horrific, Niles, uses humor as an offset to remarkable effect. There were times when I was laughing out loud, I couldn't help it. Niles's dialogue is also at it's peak, as it is flowing and natural. And Templesmith's art perfectly suited for this story. With it's assortment of classic monsters, his wicked art, a combination of Jae Lee, Bill Sienkiewicz, yet beautifully his own renders the characters perfectly for the mood of the story. If you like monsters, if you like Sin City, or 30 Days of Night, if you're looking for a book that's different and way better than average, then give this graphic a try. I promise, you won't be disappointed in the least. Highly recommended to new fans and established comic collectors alike, but it is for mature readers. This graphic reprints Criminal Macabre #1-5 by Dark Horse Comics.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best of times, the worst of times....,
By Creation27 (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery (Dark Horse Comics Collection) (Paperback)
Funny, scary, and everything good about Steve Niles and Cal Mcdonaldm even the author's commentary and the intro was funny and interesting, and that's saying a lot because, who EVER reads those?
The illustrations though, they could use more definition. Sometimes it was hard to understand what was going on because some of the pictures were either not clearly defined enough or too small, like the Producers told Steven and Ben to shorten the book and make the illustrations smaller. That's kindof what it seems like. Well, Steve, Ben, GREAT BOOK!!! BUT COULD YOU TWEAK THE ILLUSTRATIONS A BIT PLEASE?
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
|
|
