Basketful of Heads

Basketful of Heads
Joe Hill, writer; Leomacs, artist; Dave Stewart, colorist
DC Black Label, 2020

The first of horror writer Joe Hill's Hill House Comics line for DC Comics, this collects the seven issue miniseries published 2019 - 2020. The setting is a vacation spot called Brody Island, where June Branch is visiting her boyfriend Liam for the last weekend of summer. The festivities are interrupted by a group of convicts who escape from a work gang. When they break into the house June and Liam are watching, she grabs an ancient Viking battle axe to defend herself (not as strange as it sounds: the police chief who owns the house collects Viking artifacts). Next thing she knows, she beheads one of them: then the strangeness really begins, because the head keeps right on talking to her.

What happens next is telegraphed by the title. She keeps collecting heads, stashing them in a basket she carries with her. And in the process she learns more and more about what is happening on the island. Turns out the prisoner escape was just a ruse to cover up other crimes, and Liam and most of the police force seem to be involved. So June is not sure who to trust, plus there is a massive storm hitting the island, which has already cut it off from the mainland. It's a bit of a classic EC horror comics ending, with June escaping the island in the company of the one person she can trust (the FBI informant everyone was so afraid of, and never suspected). She dumps the heads and the axe into the ocean, and rides off.

It's a classic horror comic in that evil doers get their comeuppance at the hands of an innocent caught up in events: but the innocent apparently gets off with no consequences for her actions. Leomacs (seen before on Lucifer) has a classic visual style to go with it. Lots of broad facial expressions and action (reminds me a bit of Mad magazine), and he makes frequent use of the device of depicting action in a single panel (e.g. showing a character walking down a path by employing multiple character images). Kind of light-hearted fun, despite all the violence. The collection has some interesting extras: alternate covers and interviews with Hill and Leomacs, including character studies and other sketches.

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  • I liked this one. I think it would read better as a tpb than as a series of periodical issues.

  • I loved this one. Leomac's art was a revelation to me; I'll be on the lookout for the next thing he does. I loved the chapter title pages, with the hands from the basket showing which chapter is it. 

    I also liked the idea that this was pretty much set on the island where Jaws took place (Brody Island, named for Roy Schieder's sheriff), but telling a completely different type of story in the setting. 

    I agree it'll read better as a collection than month-to-month, but I enjoyed the cliffhangers and the waits as well. But I think the first issue should have been double-sized, just to get the head-chopping started from the jump! 

  • I read this one yesterday, and I thought it was really good. The art kind of reminded me of Dave Lapham, and some of the characters looked like real world people.

    Mr. Hamilton reminded me a little bit of Ned Beatty, and the Sheriff looked a bit like James Coburn (especially in the back of the book with the character sketches).

    It had some good humor to it, and a lot of the violence was just so over the top, that was kind of funny too.

    I read the first issue at my LCS, lo those many months ago, and when the trade became available I actually remembered to order it.

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