Review -- THE TWILIGHT AGE

The Twilight Age
Art by Jan Scherpenhuizen
Written by Jan Scherpenhuizen
Black House Comics
If you want to be truly creeped out, The Twilight Age is a good comic for the job.
This is a horror story, but one made more horrible by the all too believable storyline.
This is not a tale of scarecrows coming to life. Zombies emerging from their graves, or ghosts haunting a house. Writer and artist Jan Scherpenhuizen has created a scarier take than that.
This is a story of a world where some disease is ravishing the population. When the headlines today are of the H1N1, and the possibility it might mutate into a more virulent and deadly disease, it' a storyline that reads rather close to home.
Now you might think a world in chaos because of a plague killing people would be enough, but Scherpenhuizen ramps up the fear factor by imposing a cereal killer on the overall story. Th killers likes to drain the blood of his victims, and has left a trail of corpses through the preview Zero and Issue One of the book.
Again, any week you can probably find a headline somewhere in North America of some whacked out person visiting unspeakable deaths on others.
Credit Scherpenhuizen for recognizing the scariest horrors are with us. He just put a couple of all too real headlines on a few steroids, and ended up with a horror book based on the possible.
The idea of the book evolved from other efforts, said The Twilight Age's creator.
“Stephen King's The Stand - read it 15 years ago and wrote series of short stories set in Australia based on a similar scenario. When I had the idea for a federal cop getting his man at the end of the world I turned it into a novel of 460 pages - lost the manuscript,” said Scherpenhuizen. “When I spoke to Baden Kirgan about what he wanted to publish I knew this was the time to revive the idea which I always had faith in. Baden wanted it set in the U.S. Other influences: John Wydham's post-apocalyptic novels, HP Lovecraft, X-files, and Twilight Zone.”
The art, this book is in full colour works, although it is not the strength of the title. Scherpenhuizen uses too many close-ups, panels that are from the neck tie up. He also tends to use a lot of smaller panels, which can work if counter balanced by some full page splashes. Here he does not go big and bold often enough.
The result is that you may not immediately gravitate to this book, since art attracts comic readers. In this case though, take the chance. The art is admittedly only average, but the storyline is a compelling one based on it's element of reality.
Scherpenhuizen said he was looking to achieve a classic look with the art.
“I was going for a classic look influenced by Aparo, Buscema, Colan and Adams,” he said, adding he “also loves the Kuberts, Bryan Hitch, Alan Davis, Gibbons and Bolland all of whom have an influence but mainly I'm influenced by the older stuff on this book.”
Scherpenhuizen said he likes doing both the art and the writing himself.
“I like doing both writing and drawing because I get what I want from my artist and I never ask him to draw anything that won't work,” he said. “On the other hand it is a grueling schedule and I'm looking forward to getting an inker/colourist for the next story arc. The writing comes very easy, the art sometimes very hard, other times easy.”
Interestingly, moving forward, Scherpenhuizen said the storyline will veer back to more mystical horror precepts.
“I've about 30 issues plotted roughly for story arcs of three-to-five issues,” he said. “(The main character) Justin will wander the post-apocalyptic world of the twilight age trying to bring law to the lawless. Vampires, zombies, monsters, Mad Max types, a cult led by a Michael Jackson type.
“Essentially, though, the stories are as much character driven as action oriented. The Scarred Man who is intro'ed in issue #3 also plays a major role focusing on the lovecraftian elements and there'll be multi-plot line issues cutting back and forth between different characters.”
Check it out at www.blackhousecomics.com
-- CALVIN DANIELS
-- Appeared on Yorkton This Week WebXtra