Friday the 13th: Volume 1 [Paperback]

Jimmy Palmiotti (Author), Justin Gray (Author), Adam Archer (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Wildstorm (September 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401214592
• ISBN-13: 978-1401214593
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 0.3 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,199,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Awesome Treat For The F13 Fan, And An Excellent Comic Book Collection, October 5, 2007

By 

Stephen B. O'Blenis (Nova Scotia, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Friday the 13th: Volume 1 (Paperback)

With the film series that started in 1980 having apparantly ended with 2003's Freddy Vs. Jason (the next F13 movie looks likely to be a remake rather than a sequel), it's a heavensent treat to have an offscreen project as great as WildStorm/DC's first six issues of their Friday The 13th comics unleashed, collected here in the inaugural F13 Trade Paperback. There's some wild (and successfully executed) trekking outside of traditional Friday territory here, but really I think that it's forging all these new ideas, Combined with staying faithful to the heart of the movie series, that makes this volume so vital. I think I'm willing to consider this book part of official Friday The 13th continuity; it certainly deserves - in my opinion - to be there more than Jason X.

Among the riskiest moves taken is extending the Friday the 13th story way back before 1957 and the drowning death of Jason Voorhees, coming up with new, unrevealed history. It would seem to be have the potential to misfire, but it works. Some examples (and these all come from early in the story, so it shouldn't spoil anything) - Jason wasn't the first - and anything but the last - to drown in the waters of Crystal Lake, and the camp he was at was not the first camp on the lake's shores. The first camp, although few people around Crystal Lake want to talk about it, opened in 1935, and like the more famous camp of the fifties, burned to the ground a year after its opening. And for the victims to have been claimed by the lake, Jason is only one of over a hundred and fifty, something nobody anywhere near the lake wants to think about.

This brings to mind a good question that's occurred to everybody as the movie series grew in number: why on Earth does anyone go near the place, let alone build a summer camp there, when there've been so many murders that just can't be ignored, no matter how much the authorities try to tell people that Jason isn't supernatural, or that most of the murders are done by copycats, or whatever. For this entry in the series, there's a simple and cynically believable rationale: the new camp managers want to capitalize on the legend. Stocking up the camp with shirts emblazoned with 'I Survived Camp Blood' for sale, and replicas of the legendary hockey mask on sale, you can see how if this was all real, somebody might actually come up with the bright idea of trying something like this. So the camp is being built up anew by a crew of teenage/twentysomething summer workers, the late spring is beautiful, and disaster is waiting to strike.

The characters they've assembled are pretty interesting. You can start off liking one of them, and they go and do or say something so low or assinine you dislike them, and later as the going gets tough they'll come around and start to seem not so bad again... there's swerves with most of the characterizations like this, and it goes hand in hand with the air of mystery built up for a couple of the characters. It builds up a nice slippery slope where you're often not quite sure what's really going on under the surface. The story evidently takes place after "Freddy Vs. Jason", but - perhaps because of the massive damage he took in that one - Jason's power level isn't on par with where it was in FVJ or "Jason Goes To Hell", more like in "Jason Lives" or "The New Blood". Strong but quite a bit below maximum, capable of short bursts of fair speed but generally rather slow, able to take enormous damage but often needing a few moments to recover from it instead of just plowing right through it like in JG2H or FVJ. Most interestingly, there seems to be a follow-up to how in FVJ Freddy reawakened not just Jason's body but, accidentally, his mind - Jason appears to be in the early stages of being able to think. In this volume it's unclear on what path that's going to take him, but it's a tantalizing thought.

The ending issue of this series is pretty out there in suggesting an origin for the strangeness of the lake itself. It would have worked brilliantly in an original tale that wasn't part of a pre-existing series, and I think it worked well here too, but it's going to take a while for the future tales to confirm it. That is, this element can be part of the mythos as long as it doesn't come to dominate it. And I still think Jason would most likely have risen without this particular hook from the past, but it's certainly innovatative.

Written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray (Hawkman #s 28-49; Monolith; The Hills Have Eyes - The Beginning) who are establishing themselves as two of the premiere writers in comics, especially on the more macabre, darker stuff. Adam Archer, who I don't think I was familiar with before this series and who I guess must be a relative newcomer(?) handles the pencils and does some dynamic things that really help the flow of the story - I like the way, for instance, things can be moving very slow, tranquil even, then a sudden intense burst of violent action, and then return very quickly to an air of seeming normalcy. Overall, the interior art wasn't quite on the level of the cover arts by Ryan Sook (Seven Soldiers: Zatanna), but Sook's rather exceptional. Archer needs a little more work on some of the facial shots, that's about the only place where an occasional chink in the armor of the art creeps in. And it's not every panel, or a serious impediment to the overall package.

This is an essential for the Friday The 13th fan, it's better than several of the movies (and I'm really into all the movies, except, again, Jason X. And even that one had a few good things about it), it lacked the utter implausibilities that haunted a coule of otherwise strong movie entries (like "Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan"). I had high hopes for this series when it came out, and it exceeded them. Among the best F13s.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adding to the Mythos, October 3, 2007

By 

Captain Insanity "Horror Happy Hour" (NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Friday the 13th: Volume 1 (Paperback)

You know him!! You love him!!

The man....the legend.....Mr. Jason Voorhies.

You know how he died.

You know how he came back.

You even know how he got his mask.

But do you know.. how many others have died at Crystal Lake??

...Have drowned in her icy waters??

Do you know how many others Crystal Lake has brought back?

Do you know how long the killing has been going on?

Do you know how it started?

Do you know that it started waaay before Jason??

This series answers these quetions.

And in doing so, adds to the Friday the 13th mythos.

Sure there are naked chicks, teenage dialogue, and lots of juicy mutilations.

(This is Friday the 13th after all)

But there is something else here.

Something darker.

Legend.

If this comic was a Friday the 13th movie instead,

it would easily be my favorite of the series.

This was the best of the horror series that Wildstorm put out.

The others just don't compare.

(Especially not "Nightmare on Elm Street" I don't know what happened with that series)

The art is spot-on.

The characters are what you've come to love and expect.

Their dialogue is juvenile, but suprisingly enjoyable.

The writing keeps things moving, it never gets stale, it keeps you guessing.

I don't know, I just really enjoyed this series.

As a long-time fan of the movies, I was expecting the same old song and dance here.

And it is, don't get me wrong!!

But it's got a few new moves.

It's nice to see an old series that still has a few tricks up it's sleeve;

that Jason hasn't gotten rusty with age.

If you're a fan of the movies, you won't be disappointed.

And if you hated the movies.......What are you doing here?!?!

So sharpen that old machette, and hang up the holiday corpses,

'cause Jason is back in town baby!!!!!!!!!!

MORAL OF THE STORY:

You just can't keep a good guy down.

3.0 out of 5 stars All Right if You've Got Half an Hour or so to Kill? Keeps True to the Movies Format, February 13, 2009

By 

James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Friday the 13th: Volume 1 (Paperback)

Graphic novel (comic book) brings the greatest 80s horror movie series back for about half an hour or so, it's only a pretty short 136 page read. Illustrations are pretty well done, the image of the hockey masked Jason from the films is maintained and importantly so is Camp Blood and the woods and the rest of the setting. Images are quite graphic both with the killing scenes and (so you'll need to keep it away from little kids) the sex scenes as well (yep even keeps that element of the movies). I remember watching the films in the 80s as a little kid but yeah even though they are not the real people on the screens, the drawn images seem to just be more adult for some reason.

So the basic plot is an arrogant yuppie has hired a bunch of teenagers to rebuild Camp Blood. He has grand plans of attracting kids who want to say that they stayed at and survived Camp Blood, and he knows he'll be able to make a heap of money from the themed gift shop as well. He leaves a slightly older local in charge, but even he won't sleep the nights there. The group are made of slackers, a jock and his girlfriend, the jock shares a secret with the dorky hippie friend who has tagged along. You've got your token minority group characters as the 80s movies always did in an athletic African American couple, and the hot blond chick who is on medication and as you would expect part of that crazy included ripping off her clothes and running around naked. Will Jason let any of them survive?

There's also a page of text into asking why not Friday the 14th? Jason! Does the name look strange yet? It is kind of interesting. There's other graphic novels in the Friday the 13th series as well.

For fans of the franchise though you also got to check out the novels (not graphic just ordinary novels) which are standalone sequel stories to the movie series, all written by different authors under the 25th Anniversary series umbrella. Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs, Friday The 13th 3: Hate-Kill-Repeat, Friday The 13th #2: Hell Lake are just three of these books.