Saturday, March 11, 2017

GLITTERBOMB by Jim Zub

What a great cover! It's creepy, it fits the story, and really draws the eye.

This isn't the first time that someone has told a story about ambition, struggle, and failure in the soul-eating world of Hollywood and presented it as a horror story. Check out Nicolas Winding Refn's unsettling 2016 flick The Neon Demon as a good example. In fact, I'm not exactly sure why every wanna-be-in-Hollywood story isn't told as a tale of pure terror! But this graphic novel takes the whole "soul-eating" part to a new literal level though! Here, we follow Farrah, a 43-year-old actress past her prime and past her fame as a supporting player on a hit sci-fi TV show. She's a single mom struggling to make ends meet and to land auditions in the middle of an industry that's always after the young, hot, and new. But when she's down at her lowest point, that's when an ancient, evil, demon possesses her and feeds off of her rage and desire for revenge in order to satisfy it's own taste for blood and flesh!

Along with the graphic demon action and dismemberment, Glitterbomb also has genuinely poignant things to say about the Hollywood machine and the life of a struggling actor. The book shows it in Farrah's relationship with the great supporting cast, like her more successful actor friend Dean, Brooke, the younger actress who's outlook on the industry is Farrah's total opposite, or the babysitter who looks up to her. The work in Glitterbomb feels personal, as if the creators have been through similar struggles as artists and are trying to let out their own evil demons on the page in a way that won't cause anyone any true bodily harm.

GRADE: A-

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