Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special, out today – and it’s a diabolical delight!

Alongside this week’s 2000AD, don’t miss out on the all-new Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special, out today in newsagents, comic shops and treasuryofbritishcomics.com, or the official Monster Fun web site.

Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Cover - Print

Britain’s kookiest anthology returns from the great beyond with plenty of brand new, HELL-arious comic strips, mixing and mashing updated takes on just some of the classic comedy characters publisher Rebellion owns with a diabolical host of new frights.

With a stand out cover by veteran cartoonist Tom Paterson to catch the eye from the get go, this Special – which, as we previously reported, leads into an ongoing comic, launching next April – is a terrific mix of humour strips, with an all-new “Leopard from Lime Street” adventure by Simon Furman and Laurent Lefeuvre included, too.

Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Leopard from Lime Street

(It’s great to see Rebellion are mixing adventure and humour strips in this new title, something that was once regular practice in British comics, but slowly died away in favour of “single note” comics. I’ve always felt a combination of genres gave an anthology a greater strength and seeing teenage Billy Farmer back in action, the strip included very much taking the character back to his roots, is a welcome inclusion).

Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Sweeny Toddler by Tom Paterson
Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Grimly Feendish by Tom Paterson

Humour dominates this super Special of course, providing a fine mix of updated and new characters for younger readers to enjoy. And enjoy it I think they will, the frenetic craziness of Tom Paterson’s hilarious “Sweeny Toddler”, taking on a castle’s ghosts, and his “Grimly Feendish” adapting his inept evil plots for the modern world, working well with younger creators many contributions, particularly brilliant strips such as the comic’s opener, “Frankie Stein” by Cavan Scott, John Lucas and Gary Caldwell, “Kid Kong” by Alec Worley and Tiernen Trevallion, and “Tokoloshe” by Ned Hartley and Juni Ba, just three my personal favourites.

Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Kid Kong
Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Tokoloshe

On offer in this Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special is a seriously appealing smorgasbord of thoroughly-enjoyable comic silliness, from the madcap of the fast-paced updating of “Hire a Horror” by Matt Baxter and the deliciously delightful “Hell’s Angel” by Chris Garbutt, through to to the more traditional, such as “Wiz War” by Kek-W and Lew Stringer, and “Martha’s Monster Makeup” by Robin Etherington and David Follett.

Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Martha's Monster Makeup
Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Wiz War

Overall, all the strips contribute to a fantastic, carefully assembled opening salvo of sheer unadulterated erm, fun – because, dear reader, this is a comic very much not for adults, aimed straight at BEANO and Phoenix readers and doing a grand job of it, too.

Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Jump Junior
Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special - Teddy Scare

This comic may have its roots in the past, but it’s a thoroughly modern affair. It may also be for kids, but it certainly jogged my funny bone, and I’m looking forward to seeing the regular comic next year.

This is a great package of potty comics craziness, and well worth the £4.99 entrance fee to humorous horror…. why aren’t you stalking your local WHSmith already?

John Freeman

• The Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special is available now in all good comic shops and newsagents, and some run by vampires

The first regular issue of Monster Fun will be available from all good newsagents and comic shops in April, but readers can subscribe now at monsterfun.co.uk, order this Special – and receive brilliant free gifts!

• Tom Paterson fan? Good news! The Treasury of British Comics Presents: The Tom Paterson Collectionis on sale from 25th November 2021



Categories: British Comics, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Features, Reviews

Tags: , , , ,

Discover more from downthetubes.net

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading