Random Happenstance

Yesterday we had Bruce Jones's Twisted Tales, which was maybe PG-13 horror; today we've got the Twisted Tales of Bruce Jones, which is more of a hard R. From 1986, the Twisted Tales of Bruce Jones #4, story and art by Bruce Jones.

Unlike yesterday's book, today's stories have more adult situations, nudity, and graphic violence; it's the 80's cable of comic books! A writer plans on getting rid of his wife and his lover's husband in one stroke, planting letters and gifts pushing them towards each other. All the better to murder them in a surprisingly visceral two-page sequence. Still, as usual, there's no perfect crime; although I don't necessarily buy how he gets hung up, as it were.

In "Alone" young Karin's crank caller escalates in an unexpected manner: it's a hypnotist out to avenge his brother's death, since he had killed himself after she broke up with him. Worse, Karin had already been hypnotized at a party, with a secret, everyday trigger that will compel her to kill herself! It's reminiscent of the Twilight Zone episode "The Jeopardy Room." Nice twist in this one.

The GCD claims there's another story in this one, "Birth," but in my copy anyway there's only the three-pager "The Light at South Point," a slight war ghost story. Rather have gotten "Birth," sight unseen.