One of the longtime b-movie favorites of horror fans, is none other than Puppet Master, released in 1989 from Charles Band and Full Moon Studios, and became a lasting franchise totaling 10-movies, now finds itself onto pages of comic books. For those fans unaware of these villains, they’re actually toy puppets reanimated by Egyptian magic and corrupted by many. Now thanks to Action Lab: Danger Zone, (well-known for the comic Zombie Tramp) teamed with Full Moon Entertainment, a new world opens to these emotional and often misguided puppets and their dedicated fan base.

As many comic collectors know, very few comics nowadays come with one cover, the variant market exploded a few years ago, and with the Puppet Master, Action Lab which delivered 24 covers. Some of the comic covers find them solely available from certain retailers or websites and others at conventions, hence making it more difficult to get them all, included in the challenge each one limited to either 250 or 2000 each. These covers have either movie poster themes, which represent the entire franchise or variations of puppets themselves, such as Blade. In fact, the entertainment poster company, Greymatter Art, based from New York who does studio licensed film work created a comic-con and limited of 250 pieces (I have one). In addition, they teamed with artist Dan Mumford for limited edition screen prints of Puppet Master.

This comic world for the puppets can truly take them all to both a new audience and various scenarios, especially since the first issue doesn’t use the same characters from the first movie, rather exploring a new option. Now, that doesn’t mean these puppets of Andre Toulon treat their opposition with a kinder or gentler demeanor, far from it, they still slash, crush, and assault their victims with bloody results and glee to the readers. For example, the plot in this issue is a group of friends visit the infamous and derelict Bodega Bay Inn to party and explore the strange occurrences, therefore the setup mirrors the slasher cliché, and the puppets watching them all. Fret not the panels show explicit mature scenes of violence and blood splattering from Blade, Pinhead and others. Actually seen below, Tunneler entertains with a gory kill sequence.

Therefore, I encourage both comic book and horror fans to pick up this new series, with crafty puppets and a style speaking directly to the fans of the movies but open for new readers of the horror. While trivial, collecting fans, likely know that this is the third creation of the Puppet Master the other came in 1990 and 1991 both incredibly short series and from the now defunct Eternity Comics.

http://www.actionlabcomics.com/

https://www.facebook.com/fullmoonfeatures

http://www.fullmoondirect.com/Comic-Books_c_70.html