Maniac was a slasher movie made in 1980, directed by William Lustig and written by Joe Spinell and C. A. Rosenberg. Eibon Press is now adapting the film into a comic series written by Stephen Romano with art by Pat Carbajal and colors by Fatboy.
Maniac #1 starts with a zombie movie rental store proprietor who introduces the book. The story is about a man, Frank Zito, who has voices in his head, one of which is his mother, telling him to kill women. He also has flashbacks to when he was in school, and he seems to have trouble separating the past from the present. Frank lives in New York City in the ’80s, and everyone around him treats his acts as part of living in the Big Apple. Crime is rampant in the city, and no one is accountable, including Frank.
Eibon Press does an excellent job with the packaging and presentation of its books. They run mostly from the Kickstarter model and indulge fans with top-rate extras, such as a slip for the comic, trading cards, posters, and quality paper stock for their books. The art of Maniac is what you want in a slasher, and it’s gory. The artist did an excellent job in animating the faces of everyone in the book to make them interesting to look at. The coloring, on the other hand, is mostly fine, however, the overuse of the glowing effects the colorist uses is a bit distracting.
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The writing is good, though I did have a bit of trouble following all of the internal dialogue. A lot of internal dialogue boxes are used, and it comes from several different characters in the story, which can become a bit disorienting. Another thing I would have liked to have seen is the video store proprietor closing out the issue. If they’re going for a Crypt Keeper-type character, then it should follow through with him. The book ends, instead, with other extra material, such as a serial killer encyclopedia entry for Frank Zito, an interview with William Lustig, and sketchbook pages from the making of the comic. The comic definitely has plenty of extra material, even without our video store proprietor.
Eibon Press releases high-quality horror comics, mashing old EC Comics with horror movies from the VHS glory days. If you’re looking to be creeped out and relish in gore, then let your eyes pop out of your sockets looking through the pages of Maniac #1, before Frank Zito pops them out for you.
