An anthology is like a box of chocolates: there is everything. Some you like more, others less; but chocolate is always chocolate. In “Gasp!” Sergio Albarracín, real name of the rapper Elphomegascripts eleven short stories with the particularity that each of them has been illustrated by a different artist, although the theme always revolves around the coordinates of suspense, terror or science fiction.
who knows Elphomega Thanks to his musical incursions, he will know that we are dealing with a comic book geek and with this anthology he has had a blast. In addition, the brevity of the stories (twelve pages at most) allows an agile reading and a greater impact on the retinas.
But let’s go by parts: “The man in clothes”, “Nam by night: the music of the Dan Bau”, “Fear West” and “The veins of his feet” are dark chocolate, pure. The first has a super-detailed drawing style by Lalone and a brutal script twist. Nam’s is a war story set in the Vietnam War that has been drawn by Sergio Albarracín himself; he has been more disturbing than “Apocalypse Now”. For its part, “Fear West” is located in the American West and I sense echoes from “The Raven” of Poe. The last one, “The veins of your feet”, turns out to be the most complete of the book at all levels.
In the batch of milk chocolate I would place “Fascinating Botany” (one hundred percent science fiction), “Christmas in the gutter” (drawn by Coke Navarro in the vein of a “Sin City” by Frank Miller), “One ahead” (an ultraviolent prank in the vein of “Kill Bill”) and “Robot portraitist”, the only story without texts in this anthology, with a highly commendable graphic approach to understand the obsession of the protagonist despite not using words. Lastly, in the white chocolate sack I would put “How singular these molecular ones!” (a priori, the most innocent story but…), “Stowaway or Simon’s reverse sexual space ballad” (the title sums it up almost all) and “The Paradygma Assassin” (a review of serial killers with the most simpleton of all).
Regarding the texts written by Albarracín/Elphomega, I prefer this excerpt from “Nam by night: the music of the Dan Bau”, precisely the only story he draws himself: “Nobody deals with what we rats deal with. We are the ultimate expression of face-to-face combat. We are trained to kill or be killed. You have to be very special to be one of us. I don’t scare easily but there’s something about me here in the jungle that scares me more than Charlie.”
“Gasp!” is a good collection of suspense, horror and science fiction short stories. In addition, it is the first reference from a new publishing house called Bad Auteur, sponsored by Albarracín himself. I hope it serves as a launching pad for many future stories that go as far as outer space at the very least.
