The Story:

So the story begins with a bunch of weird warrior demons popping out of Terot cards... Don't worry your pretty head about them just yet, who are hunting a dorky guy in a pony tail named Trip Munroe. They track down his residence and spy on his girlfriend, Antoinette, who is yelling at a camcorder about how Trip sucks as a comedian and that she's leaving him. She then leaves the tap behind for him to find it.

Meanwhile, we meet Trip, just as he totally bombed out during his most recent gig, he explains to his friend Mona Lisa (Yeah that's really her name) that he sucks and that he's been reduced to selling his grandfathers old magic tricks in order to pay his rent.

When he gets home he finds the note left for him by Antoinette asking him to play the tape in the VCR when he's suddenly attacked by the alien, demon things. During the attack he manages to get one of his grandfathers magic rings round one monsters neck and it suddenly clamps down choking the creature to death. He then pulls a trick sword out and threatens them with it.

One of the demons tells Trip that his people are invulnerable, and that they were ordered to kill Trip by their bosses, and it was nothing personal, just let them do their job and get it over with. To try and show Trip that he can't hurt them, the demon tries to thrust the sword into his ample gut... Which actually works and he impales himself.

The other demon alien things attack him, and Trip manages to kill them all with different magic tricks, including a rubber chicken (That turns into a monster chicken that eats one of the attackers alive... yeah I don't know either.) After throwing one of the monsters out a window he is shocked to see that the world out side briefly turns into a 1930's era street.

After all the chaos is over, Trip watches the video and is totally devastated by the fact that his girlfriend just dumped him... on tape. But then suddenly, his girlfriend shows up at his door... Sorta....

Essentially, this is your wise old man coming to mentor Trip and tell him what's going on (Trip has been given fantastic powers, alien creatures trying to kill him, he's the savior of all existence etc. etc.) and that his powers accidentally gave his wise and old mentor the appearance of his now ex-girlfriend.

After showing his wisened mentor around New York, it is explained that the creatures are traveling through talismanic items, Trip mentions that he threw his grandfathers Terot cards off the Empire State Building, which prompts a visit. There another alien, demon, monster thing appears and tosses Trip off the Empire State building, and that my friends is what they call a cliffhanger.

This issue also features the premiere of another Clive Barker character, The Saint Sinner, in an attempt to plug the characters book which was to be released a few weeks after this comics initial release.... Since it's not the object of my scrutiny right now, we'll leave it be.

Critic Time!:

As I said earlier, this isn't that bad a comic book, in fact, I've read a lot worse in my time, but this comic still has it's blemishes.

For example, I present to you, exhibit A: The cover.

In the 90's there was an explosion of "special edition" covers, which essentially printed on card stock and would have some gimmick. More often it would be "holofoil" which essentially was shiny not-even-hologram material that was printed on the cover. Other things included actual holograms, glow in the dark covers, and all sorts of other non-sense. These special covers were usually reserved for "Direct Editions" (Which were sold through comic shops, "Newsstand" editions would have normal covers), first

issues, "milestone" issues, and other supposedly "significant" issues. Marvel was one of the worst of them, especially around the early 90's when it was the 30th Anniversaries of both Spider-Man and the X-Men, each respective title (and their billion spin-off titles) had a shit load of holofoil covers, and other nonsense.

The first issue of Hokum & Hex was one of these comics that had a special cover. In fact all the premiere issues of the Marvel Razorline imprint did, and as a way to make them "stand-out" among the fifty million other special holofoil covers released that month was the fact that not only was it a special holofoil cover, but the cover was also embossed!

I know the marketing ploy was enticing the reader to buy a comic by the appearance on the cover, which would explain putting bright shiny shit all over the damn thing, but I don't

know many readers who would have bought a comic book based on how the cover felt. If there are people like that out there, then those comic books are probably glued together with that collectors sperm, because I think only a strange fetish would be the only reason a person would be interested in how a comic feels. I get the feeling that there are a lot of cum splattered leather bound Avatar Press comic books out there in the world.

But enough about the cover, let's talk about the story involved....

First of all, the main character is named Trip Munroe... What the fuck kind of name is Trip Munore? Who names their kid Trip? I can understand that perhaps the idea was coming up with a dynamic name, but come on Trip? There only way they could have made that even more over the top "dynamic" is if they spelled it "Tryp". The other thing is that it appears that the main character has a resemblance to Clive Barker himself.

Also why the hell is it that when it comes to bestowing an ultimate power onto a person, and

Hey the whole universe is completely doomed unless we find ourselves a champion to bestow this amazing power we have, should we go with the confident, and positive optimist or should we go for the insecure, heart broken and untalented comedian with the stupid pony tail? Fuck, I think the only way you could pick somebody worse than that is if they had chosen a meth addict with an eating disorder.

It's not like I don't understand the cliche they're using here: Bestow an awesome power to somebody who has the potential of being a hero, but how many times do the omnipotent powers-that-be that hand these fantastic powers out have to gamble the fate of everything just to teach some sniveling loser to suck it up and be a man, or a woman if situation demands it?

Now let's talk about some of the plot elements here:

The Bad Guys:

So these aliens are going out to kill Trip Munroe and yet they don't even know what powers he's going to get? I mean it's amusing seeing them go through all their little small talk with him, but come on, we all saw the outcome of that little tete-a-tete coming.

The Heroes Powers:

So he has the power to effect non-living objects, which is totally something that's been done to death, but you have to wonder what sort of twisted mind you're dealing with that'll make rubber chickens turn into flesh eating monsters and make old men look like busty blonds.

The Climax:

You don't really make the reader want to care if you're hero is going to fall to his death off the Empire State Building (even though you know he'll use his powers to save the day first thing next issue) by mentioning in the closing narrative that the hero, and I quote, "... soils himself in utter, abject terror."

I mean, yes, that's probably what would happen in real life, in fact, if somebody threw me off the Empire State Building, I'd probably be pissing and shitting my pants at the same time... but if you're going to tell me that, why the hell don't you show it either? As you can see as picture, our hero's crotch appears pretty dry on this final page.

Which suggests the possibility that he is wearing diapers, which doesn't instill anymore faith I should have in this character.

The Final Nail:

Obviously this comic book was geared towards a wide audience, and as such Clive Barker had to tone down some of his usual subjectivity.... So I feel kind of gyped reading this. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't feel like a Clive Barker story unless there is gay characters, an ambiguous sex act explained down to the last detail, or an excessively blood, twisted, yet eloquently explained death scene that has sexual allusions.

I mean, there's always tons of twisted sex stuff in Barker's stuff... It's like somebody removed the sex drive from his story. Leaving this bland, sexless creation in it's wake.

Which strikes me as odd, I mean they should have let Barker write for an adult audience, watering down his content makes for a very boring read to say the least.

But I suppose that isn't Barker's fault, for whatever reason (and

even in most cases these days) people commonly associate super-heroes as reading material for readers under the age of 18. And the big two (Marvel and DC) usually pucker up their assholes at the idea of making a super-hero book that is geared towards a mature audience. It's not very often they let the creative team go all out with the mature content.

That's something that is less prevalent these days, but still, you won't be seeing somebody like Superman, Spider-Man or Wolverine in an adult title anytime soon.

And that about sums up my review. Hokum & Hex can probably be found in the nearest bargain in at your local comic book shop.