Count Crowley: Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter

Jerri Bartman has not been having a good time of late.  First she came back home after her co-anchor gig at a Cleveland news station went bad.  Then the local news reporting job her brother got her at their hometown news station goes up in flames after she makes a spectacle of herself exposing shenanigans at the local renfair.  She’s on the last good grace of her brother, the station manager, when he gives her this latest gig:  Taking over the Count Crowley Show from its previous host who stopped showing up two weeks ago.  Jerri’s against the idea at first, but having no other options motivates her to take it and give it her own flippant, condescending bent to it.  Which proves to be a hit with everyone who tunes in, including the werewolf that assaults her after the first show!

Longtime readers will know that I’ve had my eye on this series for a while as its premise of monster movie host turned monster hunter wasn’t a bad one coming from actor turned writer David Dastmalchian and artist Lukas Ketner.  While Ketner’s monster-illustrating bonafides were shown in the excellent “Witch Doctor” series, Dastmalchian makes a credible debut as a writer here.  While his dialogue skills aren’t anything special and there are a couple awkward scene transitions during the story, he makes Jerri into a likeable trashfire of a protagonist.  She may be exceptionally gifted at screwing up her own life (for good reason, as we find out), but she’s still determined to do the right thing at the end of the day.

While the story itself may come off as predictable in the way it plays out, there’s still some fun to be had in the details.  Particularly in Jerri’s interactions with the prickly misogynistic original host of the show Vincent Freis as he’s the only one who can clue her into this monster hunting business.  Giving it an appropriately grody look is Ketner who hasn’t lost a step in illustrating creepy monster adventures over the years.  Though he doesn’t get a chance to really cut loose with the action, the potential is there as we’re clued into a larger story at the end of this one.  As “Count Crowley” is currently on its third miniseries, seeing how that story progresses is certainly an agreeable prospect based on how this one turned out.