Four Gathered on Christmas Eve

I know it’s very out of season to talk about an anthology with this title, but it didn’t come back into stock (at a discount) with one of my preferred online retailers until recently.  Still, you could argue that it’s always the season for a collection of stories from Eric Powell, Mike Mignola, Becky Cloonan, and James Harren.  This is an assemblage of talent that got me to pick up this hardcover, small trim size, and slim collection for $25, which is something I’d be less inclined to do for creators I’m not already familiar with.  Unfortunately, “Four Gathered on Christmas Eve” shows that even these writers and artists can have off days as well.

The stories are framed by sequences set in the mid-1800’s as four unsavory characters gather together to swap stories on Christmas Eve.  There’s Miss Becky Cloonan, ostracized by high society on suspicion of matricide and the mysterious disappearances of several of her groundskeepers.  Mister Michael Mignola, fresh off his latest stay in an asylum and who is said to be giving up portrait artistry for poetry.  Mister James Harren, who has squandered the last of his family’s fortune on a telescope to find the hidden planet Vulcan between Venus and Mercury.  All are hosted by Mister Eric Powell, whose family wants nothing to do with him due to his lowborn pursuits.

They all hate each other, but have still managed an annual tradition of swapping tales on this particular day.  This year’s offerings include:

The Eyes in the Primordial Dark:  Written by Powell, illustrated by Harren.  Dr. Waldorf Horner sets off to Mars in his starship designed by engineer Nevil Phillips.  Tensions quickly flare between the two due to Dr. Horner’s domineering nature… and the possibility that the ship may be haunted.  Haunted in a rather mundane and unexciting way that flattens the Verne-esque grandeur of the setting.  Harren gets to draw some interesting stuff, but his work here lacks the gonzo energy and striking designs that have characterized his best work elsewhere.

The Kelpie:  Written and illustrated by Cloonan.  This is almost a spoken word poem, and it’s less about the titular monster than the bad man who holds its bridle.  The bad man who the woman in this story just can’t resist.  I wouldn’t quite call this intoxicating, but the story does offer up enough moody style to keep you interested and make this the best story in the collection.

The Jaberwock:  Written and illustrated by Mignola.  An uncle remembers the time he went into an old castle and wound up having to slay the monster from Lewis Caroll’s poem.  This is a veeeeeery loose adaptation of said poem that generates only mild amusement at how its protagonist is dragged along by events he has no control over.  Mignola’s art is always appealing, but as someone who’s written more short comic stories than anyone else here, this is not anywhere near the best of them.

The Gift of Major Courtenay:  Written and illustrated by Powell.  Maj. Lewis Courtenay pays a visit to his old friend Reginald Sallow which turns into a months-long stay as he camps out on the grounds of his friend’s manor.  That’s because he’s brought something back from his travels abroad that he hopes not to share with his friend.  This is also another straightforward haunting story that gets by mainly due to Powell’s artistic skills rather than his writing.  Fair warning:  If you’ve got little tolerance for how the religious and cultural traditions of unspecified foreign peoples are used in ghost stories, this one won’t change your mind.

“They’ve all done better work elsewhere” is the best way I can think of to sum up what we’re given by the creators here.  The problem with all of these stories is that they try to get by on style alone, which only Cloonan succeeds at in a relative sense.  None of the stories offer up any surprises, or any genuine scares for that matter.  I’d even go so far as to say that you’d be better served picking up a random full volume of work from any of the creators here to get a real sense of what they’re capable of.

Of course, if you did that, then you’d be missing out on the one thing this collection has to offer:  A winning sense of self-deprecation.  As mentioned above, all of the storytellers featured here are featured as characters in framing and interstitial sequences written and illustrated by Powell.  He presents them all, himself included, as selfish, crazed, bickering wackjobs who clearly don’t like or respect each other and never miss a moment to rifle off an insult about their personality or craft.

This kind of self-parody can be tiresome if it’s presented in an obvious manner, but Powell is actually pretty subtle about it.  You’re only going to pick up on a lot of the digs if you’re familiar with each creator’s style, is what I’m saying.  The end result here being that I wound up looking forward to the interstitial pages between the stories featuring the creators a lot more than I was expecting to.  Things also manage to escalate into an appropriately macabre climax for the finale as well.

It’s not enough to get me to recommend this collection to anyone other than completists of any of the creators featured here.  This was already a hard sell to me due to the price point and page count, and the overall quality of the stories here isn’t going to make it appeal to anyone who isn’t a fan of them.  Still, the self-parody here works, and if Powell, Cloonan, Mignola, and Harren decide to reunite for another go-round next year, they could probably do worse than dispensing with the stories and simply illustrate a full-length story about Powell’s take on their fictional personalities.