TITLE-Red Room The Antisocial Network
FORMAT-Trade Paperback
When the Cartoonist Kayfabe Youtube channel started I became a fan. I knew who Ed Piskor was cause I had read Hip Hop Family Tree. Once Ed revealed his next project was a horror comic based on the idea of Red Rooms and he had been reading piles of Splatterpunk fiction and watching piles of Gore movies I knew I wanted to read it.
I ordered Red Room vol 1 issue 1 from Fantagraphics. Got it in and stuck it in a longbox. As soon as the TPB was out for pre-order I did that. Got it in and stuck it on the shelf where it sat unread until very recently.
Why did I let the issue then the TPB sit there unread for over 2 years? Not really sure why. Been a few times I would grab the TPB and start to read it. Then change my mind.
During my night sit down and read after dinner time I had just finished another TPB and figured I would read issue 1 of Red Room out of this collection and then the next night finish it. Forgetting the first issue was double sized. Once I had those 64 pages read I went ahead and finished the TPB.
Ok what is a Red Room? Rumored for years they are places online where you can pay and watch someone be tortured and killed. If you have seen the Hostel films this is similar.
Ed Piskor is the writer and artist on this series. Many times he talked about how he wanted it where yoou could pick up any issue and read it without having to have read previous issues. He managed to do this. The 4 issues in this TPB are connected. But could be read in any order and still work. With each issue being a standalone story. A standalone story that also is building a world.
In the series we get introduced to the various people running these Red Rooms. They are using the Dark Web to broadcast these snuff films. People use Bitcoin to buy entry into the rooms. Then pay even more to see some graphic kills.
The kills are gruesome.Since I was a young kid I have watched horror films. Read horror comics and books. This series shows that Ed has also read a pile of the same books I have. Seen piles of the same gore movies.
Add in how good of an artist Ed Piskor is. He talks about how he wanted this to look like the so called outlaw comix of the 80s and 90s. Black and white indie comics that were filled with violence and various things you were not seeing in most comics back then. Piskor's art has this slightly cartoony look to it. Which makes a good contrast. You got something that looks like it could be taken from that silly comic strip your Aunt Lindey reads in the newspaper every day. Then the next page you will see Pokerface ripping out someone's eyeball then pulling their tongue through the now empty socket.
I just wish the writing was as good as the art. Might just be I have read/watched most of the stuff that inspired Ed to do this comic. For me the story is just a collection of highlights from the last close to 50 years of extreme horror fiction. I wanted more about how the various groups keep their Red Rooms going. Instead of page after page of shhots of the live streams and the chat room to the side of the live stream.
Been told vol 2 is better ,story wise. And as of right now Red Room is over. There is 3 volumes. Feels like the sales were dropping so Ed cut bait.
Really it is hard to say who this comic is for. The hardcore horror nuts will more than likely be like me where the story feels like something we have read before. And those that aint hardcore horror nuts will be kept away by the levels of ultra violence and gore in the comic.
While I do enjoy Ed on the Cartoonist Kayfabe vids out of the 3 comics I have read from him the only one I can recommend to people is Hip Hop Family Tree.
Red Room The Antisocial Network TPB gets a C-.
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