By: Bruce Bezaire & Jose Ortiz Publisher: Warren Publishing (October, 1980)
Magazine, 78 pages
Finished 3/8/2018
Amazon Listing
Normally I don’t cover individual
issues of a magazine but this one is special. For those who read my review of The Rook Archives I mentioned that the
best recurring story in the history of Eerie
magazine was “Night of the Jackass!” and hoped they would eventually put out a
hardcover graphic novel collecting all of the stories. While there was
apparently a version released in 2009 in the UK (at least it is listed on
Amazon UK), copies are seemingly non-existent. So in my random pursuit of the
book, I came across the knowledge that Eerie had reprinted the entire four
story series in issue 115. I jumped onto ebay and procured one forthwith-
And let’s have a round of applause for ebay, my collection of obscure books
would be vastly incomplete without it.
“Night of the Jackass” is one of the
most disturbing stories that Warren Publications ever put out. By the time
these were being produced, they had long run out of vampire, werewolf, and
zombie tales, and were groping along looking for something different. This was
one of them, the best of them. It does not hold back in its depiction of murder
of children, rape, or violence. These are not “safe” stories. Nor does the arc
end happily.
Set in the late Industrial Revolution
of the 19th Century, a drug Hyde-25 has gotten loose in capitals of Europe.
After a wrist is slashed and the drug applied, a person is transformed into a
slathering bestial version of themselves. A walking Id with superior strength
and the appetite of the most deranged rapist. The catch is that after the drug
wears off, the imbiber dies. The type of person who “jackasses” are from the
bottom rung of society - drifters, bottomed out alkies, terminally ill, the
castaways of society. The backdrop of industrial decay plays perfectly with
this bleak scenario- human wreckage being one of its bumper crops.
Into this comes our
two vengeance filled heroes. The first is Samuel Gibson, a middle class
Londoner, whose wife is killed on their honeymoon after a group of jackasses
take over the hotel they are visiting. His aim is to stop the horror from
spreading. Clause Bishop, a depressed, Welsh coal miner, who checks into that
same hotel with the idea of suicide, but finds a reason for living in
destroying those who jackass. He is the most complex character because he
battles the jackasses for the same reason they use the drug in the first place.
Later, they are joined by Mme. Berthe Astruc who accidentally created the
formula for Hyde 25 and is hastily attempting develop a cure.
Among the various themes running
about these stories, the most interesting is that of society sowing the seeds
of its own damnation. While the science of the Victorian age is tearing itself
apart, the police do little to counter it. Their standard action when a
jackassing occurs is to seal off the building and let it burn itself out,
damning the innocents inside to be raped and murdered. The ones who commit the
deeds were placed in a position where a murder/suicide romp was a pleasant thought
by the same society they desecrated.
In the final story, after pages and
pages of death and sexual assault, a cure is found, but this does not wash away
the horror that has happened. None of the characters has a sense of relief only
more dread. That’s because the cure is not an antidote, but a weapon to use
against the jackasses. All of them took the drug knowing what the effects would
be. Thus the nightmare was not truly over.
Which is why I felt there could easily have
been more Jackass stories. They never touched into who was manufacturing the
drug and its distribution method. This sort of thing doesn’t just “appear”,
someone had to be profiting. A few more stories, two or three, could easily
have been added to the lore. Not that they would have really been able to top
the first three stories in terms of brutality or shock, so perhaps it was just
as well that they left it as is.
Along with these stories is an
additional tale, called “Excerpts From the Year Five”. While it is not part of
the Jackass series, the tone of hopelessness and survival are congruent with
the other stories. It was written by the immortal Budd Lewis who is responsible
for some of horror comic’s greatest tales, and also illustrated by Jose Ortiz-
an illustrator that is chronically under recognized. “Year Five” shows the
journey of one man as he struggles to survive physically and mentally after the
world’s fossil fuel supply runs out. Grim and gritty. Nothing more needs to be
said.
I also have to
comment here on the advertisements in the magazine. It didn’t seem strange when
I was younger, but while the content is geared more for adults, the advertisers
all assumed it was kids who read the magazines, as it is riddled with ads for
toys, fantasy books, and model kits. Dominating the toys were the science fiction
giants of the day Star Wars (Empire
Strikes Back had just been released a month before), Battlestar Galactica, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek, and Alien. Actually, most of those franchises still dominate the
market. I guess there really are no new ideas.
Nostalgia gripped me and I spent a pleasant
half hour looking through all of the ads, picking out which ones I had (and
subsequently destroyed) and, more importantly, the ones I did not have and
regretted it. An old grasping nature crawled up in me and I yearned to go back
in time and pick up the Star Wars
Droid Factory, or Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer, or the Y-Wing Fighter. Ah well.
 |
| Some pine for unrequited love, I pine for unowned toys |
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.
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