If you have any questions about the kind of story you’re about to read when you open up the first issue of Lot 13, written by Steve Niles and drawn by Glenn Fabry (in a rare turn on interior art), you’ll get an inkling once you see the first panel after the prologue, which features a helicopter shot of a vehicle being used by a family in the process of moving. And you’ll damn well know what kind of story it is when you see that family enter a mysterious, empty hotel. Cue ominous synth music. Press the button to summon the blood elevator. All work and no play make Jack yell here’s Johnny! Slow zoom to an old-timey television showing oh God that’s Steve Niles walking with Nicholson through the hedge maze – smash cut to black. Fin.

So yes: this comic book is – shall we say an homage – to Kubrick’s The Shining. If it wore its influences any more obviously on its sleeve, it would come packed in a “REDRUM” polybag. But that isn’t inherently a bad thing; after all, The Shining itself is an homage to The Haunting of Hill House and that turned out okay except for Danny Lloyd’s career. What matters in any haunted house story – and to be fair, it’s too early to tell if the hotel will be the primary setting, or if things will move sometime in the next four issues – is whether or not you care about the characters and their predicament. After all, what made The Shining so effective was watching Jack struggle against the power of the hotel, while if, say, Justin Bieber walked into the Overlook Hotel, I’d roll a Molotov Cocktail in after him, bar the door and pop some corn.

So that’s the overriding question: does Niles do a good enough job making characters that inspire enough emotion to do the heavy lifting to make readers forget that they’re a pair of twins and a phantom bartender away from conversing with their finger? Well, kinda… in the sense that while I found I really didn’t give much of a fuck one way or the other about four of the characters, at least one of them engaged me enough to make me want to kill them with an axe.

Cover to Steve Niles The Thing: The Northman Nightmare, by Dark Horse ComicsYou might have heard that there’s a prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, coming out in theaters next month, that takes place in Norway about three days before the events of the classic original flick. But you might not know that Steve Niles has written a comic book that’s a prequel to the prequel that takes place about 1,000 years before the events of the prequel.

Sound interesting to you? Well, you can check out the first issue here with pencils by Patric Reynolds (Who did the art on the Serenity one-shot by Patton Oswalt), for free, in its entirety, courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.

We’ve given it a quick skim (And might review it later this week), and it looks like it’s basically The Thing Vs. Vikings. And if the comic and the movie are hits, I’m guessing we can look forward to all kinds of battles, like The Thing Vs. Pirates! Or The Thing Vs. Ninjas! Or if they can get Greg Horn on art, they can do the groundbreaking The Thing Vs. Porn Stars!

Actually, The Thing Vs. Porn Stars isn’t all that groundbreaking… it’s basically the plot to every porn movie ever made.

The Thing movie comes out October 14th.

How awesome is this?

 

Sneak Peek – Vampires vs. Zombies
Get More: Sneak Peek – Vampires vs. Zombies

Tonight on the Deadliest Warrior Season 3 finale the show goes live to discuss the undead. Max Brooks and Steve Niles argue for the cause of zombies and vampires respectively:

Los Angeles, CA, September 8, 2011 – After an overwhelmingly positive response, which included strong ratings and online traffic, to the first-ever LIVE “Deadliest Warrior” special event in August, Spike TV’s hit series, “Deadliest Warrior” is upping the ante to cap off a groundbreaking third season with an even bigger, supersized, 2.5 hour LIVE finale event (#dwlive). Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and a surprise special guest join hosts Richard “Mack” Machowicz, Geoff Desmoulin and Dr. Armand Dorian to discuss and analyze the episode and results, answer fan Facebook (via the “Deadliest Warrior” wall) and Twitter questions in real time (@Warriors_Den), reveal never-before-seen footage, including a special visit to the ER to see a day in the life of Dr. Dorian and make an exclusive announcement “Deadliest Warrior” fans won’t want to miss. In addition, Spike TV is partnering with cutting edge audience participation company Loyalize to debut the simultaneous, live broadcast of real-time viewer engagement and polling results from fans voting on dwlive.spike.com.

The supersized LIVE event of “Deadliest Warrior” premieres Wednesday, September 14 from 9:00PM-11:30PM (ET/ tape delay PT) on Spike TV. The event will be the first to televise live, instant audience participation and second-by-second voting results as part of the on-air broadcast on Spike TV.

It’s like undead chocolate meets unholy peanut butter. Frighteningly delicious!

Tune in tomorrow, when I hopefully will have a recap and finalized plans in event of a Zombie-Vamp Apocalypse!