I never tire of seeing Edgar Allan Poe’s works being adapted and appropriated into movies, TV or novels. And especially comics. It’s been done before – witness GRAPHIC CLASSICS: EDGAR ALLAN POE for one recent example – but never quite like the manner in which Richard Corben and company handle it in Marvel’s hardcover collection HAUNT OF HORROR: EDGAR ALLAN POE.

Perhaps best known as a contributor to HEAVY METAL, Corben draws 10 Poe stories and poems in his own inimitable style from scripts by Richard Margopoulos, serving as a reunion from their Warren magazine days of the ’70s (pieces of which can be found in the recent reprint books WEREWOLF and THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER AND OTHER TALES OF TERROR). Rounding up Marvel’s three-issue miniseries, this HAUNT casts much of Poe’s stories in a whole new light, while remaining reverent in stark black-and-white images.

Some of the usual suspects are here – “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Raven” – but most are comparatively obscure and welcomely updated in an all-too-contemporary manner that may even anger the Poe purists. For example, “Izrafel” takes place in the gangsta rap world, while “Eulalie” involves a blow-up sex doll. “The Happiest Day” echoes the recent rash of school shootings, and “Spirits of the Dead” casts itself against of backdrop of the Ku Klux Klan’s race lynchings. None of these existed in Poe’s time, but Corben and Margopoulos make them work remarkably.

My two favorite pieces were “The Sleeper” and “Berenice.” From a pure horror standpoint, “The Sleeper” takes the cake; its brief tale of vampires is perhaps the best showcase for Corben’s art, which here is fuck-all freaky. “Berenice” comes off as a sick black comedy, with a demented dentist obsessed with doping up one particular female patient during her appointments, eventually to ecch-cess.

Following each piece, Poe’s original story or poem appears, for those who might like to compare. This being a comic book, I didn’t care to, but hey, it’s there. Corben and Margopoulos are set to revive HAUNT OF HORROR next with an eye on H.P. Lovecraft. Can’t wait. –Rod Lott

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF RICHARD CORBEN WORKS:
• BIGFOOT
• SWAMP THING: HEALING THE BREACH