The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (comics)
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The popularity of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre film-series and of its main character, Leatherface, led to the publication of several comic books based on the franchise. In 1991, Northstar Comics released a miniseries titled Leatherface — a loose adaptation of Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III — that ran for four issues. In 1995, Topps Comics released Jason Vs. Leatherface, a three-issue miniseries that had Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame moving in with Leatherface and his cannibalistic family.
After the success of
Northstar Comics
Writer
The comics, not having the same restrictions from the
After completing Leatherface, Northstar planned to publish other Texas Chainsaw Massacre miniseries and one-shots, which included an adaptation of the original 1974 film (previews of the first two covers of the miniseries were included in Leatherface #4) written by J. J. Birch, Tim Vigil and Val Mayerik; and two original one-shots entitled The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Portfolio (produced by Dave Dorman, J. J. Birch, Vince Locke and Guy Burwell) and Leatherface Special, written by Mike Baron, which would have explored Leatherface's childhood. All of these comic projects went unpublished.[citation needed]
Topps Comics
In 1995, Topps Comics released the three-issue miniseries Jason vs. Leatherface, a non-canonical crossover between the Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchises, written by Nancy A. Collins with art by Jeff Butler.[citation needed]
The series premise involves accidentally placing
Avatar Press
In 2005, Avatar Press began to release Texas Chainsaw Massacre comics, set in the continuity of the 2003 remake of the original film, but serving as prequels to the film. The comics had a multitude of variant covers, such as "Gore", "Terror" and "Die Cut".[citation needed]
The first comic released, a one-shot entitled The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Special (written by
After the release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Special, Avatar printed a three-issue miniseries entitled The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Grind — written by Brian Pulido with art by Daniel HDR. The miniseries involves a bus full of choir-girls, along with their teachers and the teachers' daughter, becoming stranded in Texas when their bus breaks down near the Hewitt house. When the two teachers leave to seek aid, Leatherface kills them, while Hoyt finds the girls, plants drugs on them, and locks them in the Blair Meat Company where they wait for Leatherface to kill them. The Hewitts kill all the girls apart from one who escapes, only to be arrested and placed in an insane asylum after Hoyt uses a letter (written by her to her abusive father, and in which she professes to having recurring homicidal thoughts) to make it look like she killed her friends.[5]
The final release by Avatar Press, the one-shot The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fearbook, had text written by Antony Johnston with art by Daniel HDR and Mauricio Dias. The premise of this one-shot involves a quartet of friends in the midst of a cross-country trip who run afoul of Sheriff Hoyt, who forcibly takes them to the Hewitt house, where Leatherface kills them all except one, a girl named Lucy, whom he knocks unconscious; Leatherface, when Lucy awakens, puts on a mask created from her boyfriend's face and hammers one of his own masks onto her before forcing her to dance with him as she succumbs to her injuries.[6]
Wildstorm Comics
After Avatar lost the rights to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and to
This series, titled The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, ran from January to June 2007 for six issues until Wildstorm canceled its ongoing New Line horror comics in favor of publishing mini-series and specials based on the movie franchises.
Unlike Avatar's, Wildstorm's series contributed to the mythos by picking up one year after the film ended, effectively generating a sequel: Leatherface has one arm, Erin has been placed in a
Two months after the cancellation Wildstorm released The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Cut!, a one-issue special written by Will Pfeifer with art by Stefano Raffaele. This issue takes place thirty-four years after the first film, with a group of film-students seeking to document the Hewitts. One month later, a second special, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: About a Boy, written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with art by Joel Gomez, would follow.[7] This issue featured a back story on Thomas Hewitt as a child prior to the events of The Beginning. A third one-shot titled "Hoyt, By Himself" reunited writers Abnett and Lanning with artist Wesley Craig and focused on Hoyt's past, in particular expanding on his time as a prisoner of war during the Korean War and perforce taking up cannibalism to survive.[8][9]
In September 2007 Leatherface appeared alongside Freddy Krueger in the first issue of New Line Cinema's Tales of Horror in a story entitled "The Texas Chainsaw Salesman", written by Christos Gage and Peter Milligan.[10] In late 2008, Wildstorm started a three-issue miniseries, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Raising Cain, written by Bruce Jones with art by Chris Gugliotti. The miniseries centers around two members of the Hewitt family, twin brothers separated at birth: Cain and Abel, with Abel raised by the Hewitts and Cain by a normal, loving family.[11]
See also
References
- ^ AUTHORS - MORT CASTLE - GLASS HOUSE GRAPHICS, INC www.glassghousegraphics.com Archived 2009-02-21 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Movie Maniac Comic Books
- ^ A film of the comic was talked about in 2008, but died down after the remake of Friday the 13. Jason vs. Leatherface - Digital Retribution Comic Review
- ^ The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Special #1 - Digital Retribution Comic Review
- ^ The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Grind - Digital Retribution Comic Review
- ^ The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fearbook - Digital Retribution Comic Review
- ^ Wildstorm Updates Publishing Plans For Horror/Movie Titles, Dc News - Newsarama Archived 2007-03-20 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ MojoBlender: New Texas Chainsaw Massacre sketches
- ^ MojoBlender: Finishing up latest Chainsaw issue
- ^ DC Comics
- ^ Wildstorm
External links
- Icons of Fright
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Avatar
- Newsarama: More Horror Coming from Wildstorm
- Comic Monsters interview with Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Wesley Craig
- Comicon interview with Ben Abernathy, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Randy Mayor and Wes Abott