Premature Action: Ragemoor #1 Review

Ragemoor is an ambitious book that tries to capture the feeling of a classic haunted house tale mated with an H. P. Lovecraft feeling of cosmic dread, jacked off over by a morality tale from an EC Comics book. However, in trying to introduce several characters, 3,000 years of history (evil history!) and deliver a concrete payoff, all in 24 pages, it trades dread and suspense one expects from a haunted house / elder gods story in favor of quickie violence, making the whole thing feel less like The Colour Out Of Space than Jason X. It is a misfire, but thanks to Richard Corben’s art, it is a good-looking misfire.

We are introduced to Herbert, the current owner of Ragemoor Castle who declares the property to be evil down to its core because he sometimes becomes lost in its halls, and because he believes that it has caused his father Machlan to go insane because Machlan dances around naked and pisses in hallways. Which makes Ragemoor sound less like a haunted house than it does every college dormitory in America. These are signs of substance abuse, not insanity, to which my current writing of this outside of a straitjacket will testify. But I digress.