"The End" Week: Flinch #16!

Sometimes I'll grab a last issue when I find it; and sometimes I'll randomly find one already in my collection, like today's book: From 2001, Flinch #16, with "The Wedding Breakfast" Written by Mike Carey, art by Craig Hamilton; "a temporary life." Written by Charlie Boatner, art by Philip Bond; and "Descent" Written by Guy Gonzalez, art by Danijel Zezelj. Cover by Richard Corben.

This was Vertigo's short-lived horror anthology: they had done more themed mini-series like Weird War Tales, Weird Western Tales, and Strange Adventures; but Flinch was a little more free-form. Vertigo was pretty good about getting names for those; but I don't know if 8-page stories were big enough draws.

In "The Wedding Breakfast," a shifty Victorian plots to use the poorhouse his father sponsored, to get a new downstairs maid. That's his cover story anyway, he's just looking for a suitable human sacrifice to the lords of hell; and young, naive Mala seems tailor-made for it: no close friends, prone to fantastic stories, and seemingly convinced her lost father would find her. The lamb is led to the slaughter sure enough, but of course there's a twist. "a temporary life." finds a young temp worker, smitten and grateful to his lovely supervisor Tina for the job, who volunteers for a metabolic study that gives him super-speed. Less like the Flash, more like "Wink of an Eye." He would do anything for her, but what can he do at invisible speed and aging rapidly? Lastly, in "Descent" a young man checking out a sleazy live sex show gets more than he bargained for...and then more still. Zezelj's art makes it creepy as hell; I'd seen his work in Captain America: Dead Man Running.