Joe Lansdale’s epic adaptation and update of Robert E. Howard’s classic Pigeons from Hell wraps up in this very intense and spooky issue.
Claire and Janet have come to terms with the horror in decrepit Blassenville Mansion. With the help of Griswell, a local man who is committed to fighting the horror, the group confronts the terrible secret at the center of the house. We see their intense and desperate fight to defeat the evil, a battle that shakes the mind and spirit of all three people.
This is a fitting conclusion to the Lansdale/Fox take on Pigeons from Hell. While some scenes are hard to follow due to murky art and coloring, the scenes also display an intense sort of mystery and horror to chill the spines of any readers. Fox does a terrific job of showing the mansion literally falling down around the bodies of our heroes. The house is almost a living thing, as it seems to entrap and overwhelm the people wandering through it.
Lansdale and Fox convey the horror in drips and drabs, in small pieces parsed out with dramatic intensity. As alluded to in the biographical Robert E. Howard “Adventures of Two-Gun Bob” strip on the letters page of this issue, the most frightening horrors are those that live in the shadows and never emerge into the light. Lansdale and Fox are effective here at living up to Howard’s standards. The horror is never seen, only glimpsed in shadows, which only makes it seem all the more pervasive and spooky.
You’ll want to read the whole adaptation of Pigeons From Hell in a collected edition; this final issue won’t make much sense to you as a standalone story. But for those who’ve read the story, this issue is terrific.