Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of getting to review a gem of an independent comic book called POCUS HOCUS. Well today we are looking at another title by the same creative team (Dunford, Radford, Balondo, etc): GRANDMA CHAINSAW!

As you can tell by reading the previously linked article, I dug Pocus Hocus and the world it was building. There is a great deal of humor there, but it’s propping up a mystical world of demons and magic. It feels like that book could just expand forever and ever into the horizon. There is potential for mood shifts as it grows. Grandma Chainsaw seems to be more of a purely humor-centric book, despite the fact that it’s a mash-up of classic fables and slasher horror flicks.

I mean, it’s an absurd match-up, I suppose.

As such, it’s likely that Pocus Hocus as a series has more in the way of legs than GC does. I’m curious too see how long Dunford and Radford can keep Grandma Chainsaw going, though… if they want to work other elements of mythology and folklore into this story, who knows what they can accomplish?

The story in this first issue of GC is that of a quartet of college-aged travelers out on the roads to fun and adventure. When they get lost in the woods and their GPS has long since stopped working, they come across an old house with a friendly, if incredibly weird, old lady as its sole resident. She invites them in to stay the might and wait until her handyman can come look at their tire blow-out.

There are a billion red flags, starting with Grandma’s undead skin tone, and going through her fierce insistence on old-school table manners, but with our protagonists having no choice, they resign themselves to staying the night with her.

I was a bit surprised that in this very first issue, we start losing characters, though I guess a book titled “Grandma Chainsaw” probably isn’t going to marry itself to slow burn development. In the middle of the night, Grandma strikes, killing two of the unfortunate travelers, and honestly? The book gives us a HELL of a splash page along the way.

With their friends fallen, the survivors, twins Haiden and Gabby, flee into the woods for safety. Which… they kind of find? From a very unusual source. But to see what I mean about that, buy the book!

I do think that, issue-for-issue, Grandma Chainsaw is even more entertaining than Pocus Hocus, though again… I’m not sure if this is a title that can last for, say, 50 issues or so. But I had quite a blast with this read. It’s wildly imaginative and has a wonderful tongue-in-cheek sensibility.

If you are curious about this title, reach out to co-writer Allen Dunford HERE.