Predator: Hell & Hot Water [Paperback]

Mark Schultz (Author), Gene Colan (Author), Gregory Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 1998

Two days ago, the crew of a Chilean fishing vessel saw something fall from the sky. Captain Cromartie has a pretty good idea what's down in those cold waters -- he's pretty sure he's fishing for Predators. But knowing what you're fishing for and knowing how to catch it are two totally different things.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 16 and up
  
• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse; 1st edition (March 31, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569712719
• ISBN-13: 978-1569712719
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 6.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,553,485 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous Gene Colan pencils - mediocre Schultz story, October 30, 2008

By 

Andromeda "Palimino" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Predator: Hell & Hot Water (Paperback)

I do not buy comics because of the main character - I buy comics because of the creators. I think there are a number of disappointed reviewers who bought this because it was about the Predator. I like Gene Colan, and I especially love his pencils. His pencils are reproduced here, without ink. The colorist did a good job on Gene's work, avoiding the photoshop trickery that mars many modern comics. He enhances the work, rather than obscuring it. Gene has a shadowy style - realistic in the renderings of facial expressions, but expressionistic in the renderings of action and movement. In his fight scenes he renders the chaotic nature of battle, with limbs flying in every direction. He has a cinematic approach. Modern comic readers may have trouble with this collection - the heroes are not overly muscular, but rather ordinary looking, there are no poster-style splash pages, Colan is not hyperrealistic. The plot has a slow, tho suspenseful, atmospheric build; with very controlled violence. There is no graphic blood letting.

Colan renders the underwater scenes with the same dark, misty, rich atmosphere as he did London's streets in "Tomb of Dracula." Where the book falters for me, was in the writing. Mark Schultz is a good writer, but here his approach is mostly formulaic. The plot is predictable and at times contrived. There is a large and, thankfully, multi-cultural cast. Unfortunately, except for the two main characters, they are one-dimensional. Schultz decided not to use captions, a popular conceit with writer/artists - Barry Windsor Smith has made much of his eschewing of captions. Since they are mostly used for descriptions, the idea is that descriptions are unnecessary because the art speaks for itself. Anyone who has read a Stan Lee comic can attest to the fact that it is annoying when a writer covers beautiful art with captions describing what's there to see.

However, the length of "Hell & Hot Water" did not allow Schultz room to develop his characters. After an introduction and a page for each to display a little attitude, they all don identical scuba gear and dive underwater. Without captions, and with Colan's purposely shadowy style, it is hard to know who is who. The group of six divers splits into two teams of three - and without being able to tell skin color, and with so little characterization, I often could not tell which team was which, as the story shifted scenes between them.

Schultz realized - or perhaps letters let him know - that going captionless was causing problems by the third issue, so he has the main character act as a narrator. The story is solid, but you know the drill - most of these people aren't going to make it - just like any hollywood horror movie. There are some very contrived moments that Schultz uses in order to maintain that worn out horror movie cliche of characters dying one by one. Schultz throws some good surprises in there, though, to keep the story interesting, and I have to admit I did not see the ending coming. With the use of the narration, the third chapter is the best, so the story ends on a strong note.

The art is stunning, beautiful, gorgeous. Colan's renderings are exquisite - whether it's a fight scene, a facial expression, an alien life form, a storm at sea, or an underwater world full of strange animals. His use of panels and page design is inventive, even for Colan. It is wonderful to just stare at a page and appreciate the work. The upside of Schultz not using captions, and being spare with the dialogue, is that Colan's art is mostly unobscured.

The reproduction value is mostly good, tho Dark Horse didn't leave enough room at the end of the paper, so one must nearly pull the book apart to see some of the art. Also, it is printed on glossy paper, which is less absorbent, thus muting the rich qualities of the colors, while at the same time making them appear garish. Glossy paper also makes comics harder to read, as light reflects off the page obscuring your vision. I will never understand why people want to pay for expensive paper that obscures and dampens the art. The colorist, however, did such a good job, he mitigates the problem somewhat.

This book is a must have for any Gene Colan fan, the story may not be great, but it is very good, and the art is astounding.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good story, bland art, May 3, 2005

By 

Annaleise Ferreira "Acolyte of Cthulhu" (Marina, California ,United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Predator: Hell & Hot Water (Paperback)

I thought the premise of this book was quite interesting, and although it was too short to really develop the characters to their fullest, they ended up being quite interesting and sympathetic. I liked the idea of setting the action underwater as well. The only problem for me was that I didn't like the art. I had been under the impression that the cover art was indicative of the quality of the inside art, but aside from a few pictures done by the cover artist the style is very sketchy, which is alright by itself, but the characters are very indistinct and it's often very hard to tell what's supposed to be happening. Weird transitions and vaguely defined figures make the action rather confusing a lot of the time. I wish it had been refined more before publishing.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Fun than A Murderous Bathtub Toy, September 15, 2002

By 

TastyBabySyndrome "Matthew Lewis, author of M... ("Daddy Dagon's Daycare" - Proud Sponsor of the Little Tendril Baseball Team, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Predator: Hell & Hot Water (Paperback)

In my opinion, this installment of the continuing Predator saga was actually better than many pieces of feedback seem to imply. The art is actually above average, the storyline - brought to us from the Southern Chilean Coast - is done fairly well considering the watery implications on a normally landbound struggle, and the Predator is in enough of it to keep from overwhelming the reader with the drudgery of meaningless combat while still posing a threat.

The story setup is as follows:
A fishing vessel located several miles from one of the archipelagoes that make up the Southern Chilean Coast find themselves in a fast-moving weather front. While riding out the gargantuan thunderstorm in its tow, they notice something unusual; first a deafening roar and then something of an electrical ghost that first hovers, tries to ascend, and then crashes into and slips below the water's surface. Enter an array of stunningly foolish humans who, after theorizing that the "bogeys" (yes, they do know about the Predators and their atypical hunts in only the most humid of regions) were attracted to these frigid waters by some seismic activities, decide to go and play tag with the Predator. This, of course, leads to deaths, plenty of them, and to some strange discoveries in an undersea cavern that show why the Predator was really here.

As I said before, this was interesting because it removed the Predator from the trappings of its blandly overplayed normality, plus it had some other elements that were, in a word, odd. If you only want fighting and nothing more, however, skip it. If not, however, you should at least give it a once over.