Wormwood Volume 1

A wonderfully humorous, horror comic.

Wormwood, the Gentleman corpse has a problem, someone is flooding the city with sexually enhancing drugs, ones that leave a demonic seed in their partners belly..

This is a stunning piece of dark comedic horror, filled with a cool collection of oddballs (a zz-top look alike robot, a demonic tattooed dancer) and bristles with a wry dead pan yet humane humour. The dark, surreal, dreamy art is gorgeous by itself (so much so I own some prints!). If that’s not enough praise for you it has the best Leprechaun scene ever. Period. ( )

I absolutely love the characters, the story and humor of this book though for me the art work was a bit hit or miss. His style fits the characters and the world he created but some of it just felt to sketchy, incomplete and for my personal taste. ( )

This was a really wacky graphic novel and I highly recommend it.

I'm not entirely sure how to describe the genre: a bit of horror and urban fantasy, I guess. The eponymous Wormwood is a (demonic?) worm-thing that animates a corpse and rides around in its eye socket. He has an automaton bodyguard who looks like a member of ZZ Top, and eventually picks up a second: a hot little immortal stripper who can animate her tattoos. Wormwood, despite his sketchy origins, seems to be some kind of cosmic enforcer who solves mysteries involving demonic entities and patches up holes in the space-time continuum. Wormwood is on the trail of a very nasty set of Cthulhoid critters killing and transforming/possessing people who are trying to summon an even nastier critter. I won't spoil how Wormwood manages to head this off, but it's hilarious. Lots of action, excitement, witty dialogue, and dark humor. The humor is one of the book's greatest strengths, despite the adult and gory plot elements.

The book itself is beautifully done, extremely colorful, with a very striking cover and page layout. The artwork is sharp, not at all muddy as I had feared it might be. Beautiful all around. I have already bought the second trade paperback as a gift for my wife (she also enjoyed the book immensely) and I look forward to reading it.

If you enjoy the Hellboy and BPRD books, check this one out. They are the closest in genre and delivery to Wormwood that I can think of.

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers ( )

Quirky and disturbingly fun. I'm currently under the impression Templesmith can do no wrong. I was a fan of his artwork from his collaborations on Fell with Warren Ellis, but Wormwood introduced me to his obnoxious writing. I'm a fan for life. Also? He wears a fine suit. ( )

Awesome book from one of my favorite artists. Interesting story line and as always top notch artwork. Ben Templesmith is one of the top artist's of all time. Now he is branching out into writhing and the results are phenomenal I can't wait for more of his graphic novels to be released as well as his much anticipated novels . ( )