Comics Review: "Edgar Allan Poe's The Premature Burial"

- by Señor Editor, 2 April 2014

Out of all the new comics coming out today, there was one from Dark Horse that had me particularly interested. It was the one-shot “Edgar Allan Poe’s Premature Burial”, by Richard Corben. The selling points of this comic for me were as follows: Richard Corben art, Poe and premature burial.

Click to enlarge. DO IT!

Both Richard Corben and Edgar Allan Poe are men that (I should hope) need no introduction. Corben is a comicbook legend, and Poe is Poe. This one-shot sees Corben loosely adapting two of Poe’s stories about being buried alive – “The Premature Burial” and “The Cask of Amontillado”. I will talk briefly about both, with SPOILERS, so if you hate having your XIX century stories spoiled, don't read anything until the last three paragraphs.

The first story is about Lucian, a man who was having a hard time getting his fiancee, Victoria, to have sex with him. His solution for this dilemma is to poison her wine. This, as you might expect, leads to Victoria's untimely death. All according to the plan, though, as soon after the burial, Lucian is at the cemetary with a shovel, ready to dig the sexy woman out and finally get laid. Just as he's about to have his creepy big moment, the woman turns out not to be dead at all! She plants a kick to Lucian's nuts and runs away, as he falls down and hits his head on a tombstone.

What follows is rather odd, moreso than the story's beginning. Lucian is found on the cemetery and pronounced dead. He has a funeral, which Victoria attends. Later that night, two men hired by Vic dig the old pervert out. He's alive! Or is he? He wakes up to the sight of his father, who says that even though Lucian really disgraced his family, Victoria still wants to marry him, and they are in no position to refuse (due to the whole "killing Victoria and having sex with her dead body" fiasco).

For Victoria sex before marriage is a deal-breaker, but attempted necrophilia is not.

They marry, but Lucian keeps having problems. He doesn't ever want to fall asleep, because he's afraid of being pronounced dead and buried alive. He eventually does lose consciousness, and dreams about a horrific world of the rotting dead, six feet under. Aaaand that's all I can tell you about this story, without spoiling the ending entirely.

The second story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, follows Montresor, as he leads Madam Fortunato into his family vaults. There, Montresor promises to shed some light on Fortunato's husband, who has been missing for years, and he will also drink some fine Amontillado wine with Madam Fortunato. The wine and Mr. Fortunato are connected, you see. And the disappearence of the husband has something to do with a different kind of premature burial. You can find out for yourself, when you pick up the comic.

Lucian's creepy vision is Corben at his best.

Now, while the stories are amazingly gruesome and disturbing, and Poe's fans will be happy to own this one-shot, it's really Corben's art that makes this comic a must-buy. 

Despite the artist being over 70 years old, Corben’s art doesn’t age. His style here is still fantastic. It can be sexy, it can be gruesome and it’s always great. This is good to see, especially since some of his work in comics in recent years (especially the stuff for Marvel, like the mediocre “Banner” and outright bad “Punisher: The End”) has left me cold. Here, it’s great, and it’s really helped by the colors, done by Corben and Beth Corben Reed. The lettering, done by Nate Piekos of Blambot, is also fantastic and helps make this comic look really beautiful.

This one-shot was a very nice surprise from Dark Horse, a really well done marriage between Poe's conceptual horror and Corben's great, stylised art. It's a very fast read, and it may seem like that's a bad thing, but you will find yourself reading the comic several times, to really let the atmosphere of the Poe+Corben combo sink in. A very interesting one-shot, well worth owning.


Are you a Poe fan? Fan of Richard Corben's art? Fan of premature burials? What did you think of this one-shot? Let us know in the comments!

Tagged: comics, Reviews.

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