Review of the novel "Baltimore. Plague ships"

The comic book series "Baltimore", which began to be published thanks to the publishing house MAL'OPUS, is not the only image of this military conflict in, say, mainstream graphic prose. I don't know why only screenwriter Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden guessed to use a gray, tortured Europe as a background for a story about immortal evil, but from the very first pages it becomes clear that it was a very good idea. The ruins of the church, where red-eyed vampires hide, abandoned ghost towns, the remains of rusty sunken ships that are slowly overgrown with algae - all this creates an oppressive, mourning atmosphere.

The king of horror Stephen King said that the book is the future of horror. The aesthete of cinematic violence Quentin Tarantino believes that calling "Books of Blood" an ordinary horror movie is like calling The Beatles a band that plays in cheap clubs. I cannot fully express how impressive this book is. King managed to describe in an incredibly interesting and truthful way the spirit of the 50s that reigns in the small town of Derry; the individuality and realism of the characters; the horror that seven losers had to experience, and much more. From the first pages, I was imbued with responsiveness, understanding, sympathy for each of the characters. And I would like to name everyone. Bill Denbrough, Ben Genscombe, Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh, Stan Juris, Michael Hanlon and Eddie Kaspbrak. They are all so different, and their fates are tragic...

Even the protagonist of this series, the monster killer and veteran Lord Baltimore, himself looks more like a living personification of failure than a traditional noble hero - at the beginning of the comic we are even informed that he is cursed. The image of Baltimore can be read as a very subtle meditation on the topic of PTSD and survivor's guilt - although the veteran cleanses the world of evil around the clock, he can't get rid of the idea that all these bloodthirsty monsters got into the world through him. Well, this feeling of guilt appeared for a reason (I won't spoiler, there's really a very intriguing backstory there!), but Minyola and Gold brilliantly draw parallels between otherworldly horrors and the real psychological consequences of the war, with which veterans are forced to fight.

The subtext of the plot is successfully emphasized by Ben Stenbeck's drawings and Dave Stewart's coloring. A cold, dark world is gradually forming before our eyes, in which the only bright spots are hellish explosions of zeppelins, bloody streams or rust, which gradually destroys everything that people have not destroyed.

A short exposition, an interesting plot, bright characters, exciting plots, cool finales and a very tasty, metaphorical manner of writing by Barker suck the works into the brain for a long time. I hope that someday they will be published in our native language, I really want publishers to pay attention to the literary legacy of a bright representative of the gossippunk - Clive Barker. Perhaps the future film adaptation will add inspiration to our publishers, and we will read this unsurpassed series in our native language. https://doradobet.org/