Pittsburgh-based artist Ed Piskor has made some incredible comics, including issues of American Splendor, Wizzywig, Hip Hop Family Tree and X-Men: Grand Design. Now, he’s unleashing Red Room, a comic that fans of our site will love, because it’s basically an exploitation slasher gore film on paper.
Red Room is about a group of killers who use the anonymous dark web and nearly untraceable crypto-currency to live-stream the senseless slaughter of their victims for entertainment. Each issue of this 12-part series is a complete self-contained story.
Piskor gets the whole feel of why we love slashers, which I think comes from teen years of bicycling from video store to video store to find the latest transgressive movie experiences, as well as buying every bootleg he could find at conventions.
Make no mistake, Red Room features the kind of gore that you’d see in the world of Italian cinema or in the films of Takeshi Miike. Nothing is held back as the world of killers like Poker Face, Donna Butcher, Mistress Pentagram and more basically annihilate people for the gratification of sick bastards like, well, me and you.
This is comics as close to the works of D’Amato and Mattei as it gets. I’m really excited about this series and happy that Piskor sent us some advance copies so we could get the word out. If you love slashers, EC Comics and social commentary all in one very bloody package, Red Room is quite literally the best comic book of the year.
You can get Red Room from Fantagraphics or at your local comic book store this week!