Review by Frank Plowright

Dale Kraken is a 1930s adventurer broadly of the Indiana Jones type, except with a team of helpers. He’s rescued his girlfriend from her spooky abductors, but while she safely boards his ship, his plane flies into an unusual storm. Kraken’s not seen for three years, and when he returns after long being believed dead he’s a transformed man. He’s also a man with a mission as he knows what’s coming and he needs his old crew back together to prevent it.

With the 1930s setting, Nazis around the world and a supernatural intrusion imminent, Shannon Eric Denton’s in the Mike Mignola playground, acknowledged by Mignola providing an alternative cover, and he makes the most of it. Kraken picks up an engaging set of helpers as he’s shunted from a den of thieves to a foreboding desolate island, along the way dealing with pirates and assorted other pulp favourites. Crucially, while Kraken’s beyond the man he used to be, his terrible new abilities are sparingly used, ensuring there’s greater effect when they’re needed.

This is given maximum impact by David Hartman, whose sketchy art has the same energy rush supplied by primitive 1940s comics, but with Hartman applying a storytelling sophistication those comics never had. He brings people to life, but most importantly brings a world to life, one where weirdness is an everyday reality.

Kraken is a lot of fun from frenetic start to prelude finish, a solid concept with plenty of answers yet to be supplied, but it seems Denton and Hartman have a sequel in mind…