One tends to think of the 1980s as a particularly special time for “mature readers” horror comics, with madness like Faust, Deadworld, Twisted Tales, and of course Gore Shriek running absolutely wild across the tall racks of local comic shops (and finding their way into countless trash cans courtesy of puffy-shouldered moms). R-rated splatter had finally come into its own, and broken free of any real form of industry-enforced censorship, and it was a goddamn party.
So much so, that it can be easy to forget that some of the goriest, most perverse comics ever actually came out in the 1990s, a decade known for its overall vanilla wafer blandness. But it wasn’t all a PC buzzkill; for every Hansen there must be a Manson, and so it was in the world of comics.
Enter the infamous Northstar, publisher of the aforementioned Faust, and the notorious (and pretty damned good) adaptation of Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. Along with Hart Fisher’s Boneyard Press (publisher of unrivaled controversy magnet Jeffery [sic] Dahmer: An unauthorized biography of a serial killer), and the ever dependable Fantaco, Northstar was the premier publisher of naughty-ass horror comics. Chief among the in-house line was Splatter, a splatterpunk anthology with a little bit of a nastier edge than many, leaning in to themes of urban violence and nightly-news-born horrors over rubber monsters and slasher slaughter. Well...for the most part.
After Tim Vigil (and more about him in a bit) took his creation Faust to his own company Rebel Studios, Northstar thrashed about trying to groom their own, company owned horror stars to rival their former superstar tenant. It, um...didn’t go super well. Arguably the most pushed of these characters was Klownshock, a character basically based on Tommy Pons’ mascot for forgotten metal act Dangerous Toys (sorry, guys). A cool looking character for sure, Klowny was basically just Evil Ernie with greasepaint, and while fun, was justifiably relegated to the dustbin of history. Then we have Miseroth, who resembles a Satanic Derek Rook (hey, don’t kill the fakkin’ messenger; that’s more presentable than me, who just comes off as a real life Trevor Philips), and he’s a...punishing demon or something, I don’t know, I don’t really know what the hell is going on with Miseroth. But easily the most interesting, and by a substantial margin...was Adam McDaniel’s Tool.
With Klownshock, you have a killer clown. Fair enough. With Miseroth, you have a demon who very likely listens to Type O Negative. Fine. But Tool...Tool was something else entirely. Debuting as the final, self-titled short in 1994’s Splatter Annual, Tool comes across as a Monkey’s Paw Pinhead, with a teeny bit of Predator just for style...a creature from beyond our reality, from a place not unlike our interpretation of Hell, an unfathomable avatar of human agony (shades of Joe Landsdale’s God of the Razor), who nevertheless can enter our plane and act on our behalf - so long as something bleeds, and suffers, and what we consider “good” is defiled in the end. Think Wishmaster if Wishmaster didn’t suck and was exec’ produced by Clive Barker, and designed by Bernie Wrightson. No, seriously, this is some crazy shit, and it’s a damned shame it didn’t catch on.
So, our debut tale begins on a chilly note, with narration from a freshly murdered boy about what led him to his current state, and as it so happens, it was unpleasant. After watching his stepfather smash his mother’s brains in with a claw hammer during an all-too-familiar argument, he soon winds up curled up in his jammies, with blood from his tiny skull soaking into the floorboards.
But that uplifting intro is only the beginning. Soon, rising from the carnage, arrives Tool (the unfathomable cosmic monster, not the industrious prog band), and he is displeased with our hammer-wielding bad dad...but not because he slaughtered an innocent, not quite. Tool feels robbed of the pleasure of administering a lifetime of suffering to the boy himself, so now naughty daddy has to pay the toll, the Frank Cotton way. And oh, does he ever. Imagine Warlock from The New Mutants erupt out of your body like a chestburster, …and you get the idea...sorta.
Whatever the case, our hapless narrator is mercifully spared Tool’s razored clutches. He’s moved on to a peaceful little plot of land, right next to his mother, six feet down where murderous stepparents and cybernetic hellbeasts can no longer harm them. Don’t cha love happy endings?!
The following year saw the eponymous fiend get his own one shot, reprinting the original tale and following it up with new installments, that take things in some...interesting directions. Read on!
Meat follows the unlucky tale of a young couple whose car breaks down near the shack of a human-skin-wearing axe murderer (living in Wisconsin, this is as common as being drunk by noon). Set up by the maniac, hubby is chopped into cold cuts, and his lady love flees the scene (and right into the killer’s body-strewn lair, in typical slasher fashion). At this point, our old pal Tool once again rises from the gore puddle, and grants our victim the “gift” of revenge from beyond the grave...reconfiguring the heap of body parts into a twisted hulk that sets out for a little eye-for-an-eye justice. Unfortunately, he Kool-Aid-Mans his way into the dilapidated cabin, just in time to find the axe man burying the hatchet in his beloved’s brain. He leaves the killer in pieces, of course, but with nothing left to live for, he shambles into the nearby forest, forever cursed, like a Swamp Thing made of overripe deli selections. Just then, the axe man’s severed head wakes up, promising god-knows-what. Will these two undead abominations have a rematch? Are there just two murderous beasts forever loose in these woods now? Who knows? Whatever the case, I’m sure Tool’s just happy to have made an even bigger mess of things.
Our trilogy of terrors concludes with The Milk of Human Suffering, and boy oh boy, brothers and sisters, this is the reason you’ve shown up. Look, I’m gonna cut straight to the point - a guy is executed for fucking his favorite cow. There’s now no way to dress this up; this guy’s been slippin’ the long pig to his favorite side o’ beef, and the townsfolk are none too happy about it, so it’s lynching ahoy. Popping in to check out this little incident, Tool is bemused to grant the dying cow-fucker’s final, deranged wish. And what might that be? Why, to forever merge with the object of his adoration, resulting in a Cronenbergian mass of twisted flesh, part man, part cow, all horror. Once again, our story ends as the udder-loving freak’s warpath begins, leaving us to wonder just what the fuck could possibly come next. Well, we do get a taste...what would be the following scene is the cover to the goddamn book. Tool himself doesn’t even warrant a cover appearance on his own one shot, but Brundlecow? You bet your ass! I’ve spent the fewest words discussing this tale, because McDaniel spends the most, with Milk being the longest in the tome. Clearly, he was invested!
And that brings me to my final thoughts on the whole fetid affair...I still don’t really know anything about Adam McDaniel. Aside from a handful of other gigs around Northstar throughout the 90s, there simply doesn’t to be much of a footprint. Did he get headhunted by Marvel? Did he get headhunted for real? His laser-sharp art style might remind one of, say, a cross between Kyle Hotz and Tim Tyler, so he’s sure to have a lot of books under his belt and a cult following, right? Right?! This is where I start to grow worried. You see, McDaniel belongs to that gang of artists like Jim Somerville, Matt Roach, Jerry Beck, and the aforementioned Tim Vigil, guys with an insanely sharp black and white style, a clear love of Wrightson, and a realistic-yet-expressive style, that burst onto the indie scene in the 80s and 90s and made a huge scar on the horror scene. But that’s why the beads of sweat begin to form on my temples, my heart murmurs, and I feel that cold clench in my quivering rosebud. Matt Roach became a Bible-thumping loon, and dropped out of sight altogether. From what I hear, Somerville became an outright minister, and turned his back on comics entirely. Jerry Beck became a rabid anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist, and vanished from the public eye. Tim Vigil became one of the titans of the indie scene, and is still very much around...but he’s a xenophobic, anti-mask, alt-right asshole (aw, a sacred cow! Yeah, they’re fucking delicious medium rare). I truly hope that, whatever his fate, Adam McDaniel hasn’t joined the rest of his ilk, screaming about a recount somewhere, whilst carving passages from Ephesians into his chest. Maybe he’s just doing more square work these days, like graphic design, or portraits. Or maybe I’m just a dipshit, and didn’t realize he’s had a gig at DC or like 30 years.
Maybe...just maybe...he’s a part of Tool.
