Originally published March 24, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1114
Another week (last one, I promise) wherein I’m tight on time because of writing projects. So it’s time to dip back into the fill-in file for: Mystery Sandman Theatre 3000.
This installment comes from Bob J. in Spokane, WA who actually went to the trouble of doing an entire issue of a comic book: In this case, Image’s The Pact #2. I may run other pages in future columns. Bob decided to go with the cast of Sandman Mystery Theatre, Wesley Dodds and Dian Belmont, rather than The Sandman of Endless fame. Who am I to argue?
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I read either the first issue of that series. It underscored for me a lot of what was wrong with much of the early Image product and the books by other companies that were aping the new “Image Style.” Lots of flashy pinup pages with very little visual storytelling or substance. It’s almost amazing to me to think that these days Image puts out one of my all time favorite books.
I really liked The Pact (v1). One of the benefits of the “Flashy” image artisitc style with a pin up every few pages was that it read like an action adventure movie which is something sorely lacking in today’s comics of talking heads and emotionaly contrived plot lines.
Ah yes, fun to see this again. The comic shop I picked this up at actually was giving away all of their copies of this issue, and would gleefully point out why it was so awful. Did the bookcase fall on the mom or not? It was astounding how amateurish the storytelling was. Also, if I recall, I DID have the Endless Sandman pop in for a page or two.