“Don’t call it an adaptation,” begins Enrica Jang, editor of THE POE TWISTED ANTHOLOGY (Red Stylo Media), at the top of her introduction. “POE TWISTED is something different. A challenge to a new crop of writers and artists to be inspired by Poe rather than retell him.” The idea is an appealing one, and THE POE TWISTED ANTHOLOGY digs deep into his canon to come up with a collection that dances from macabre scenery to mysterious crimes to hysterical insanity.

The difficulty of the anthology is the limited number of pages the writers have to establish characters, relationships and conflicts that make an engaging read. While every piece contained within THE POE TWISTED ANTHOLOGY is at the very least intriguing, a few are able to further surmount that challenge and create a miniature world. Out of the gate, “Absolution” (written by Jason Ciaramella, art by Enrique “Zeke” Savory Jr. and colored by Alex Cormack) translates the loss and self-deprecation of the narrator from Poe’s “The Raven” into a modern tale of a father’s inability to move on from a catastrophic mistake, as he is hounded by the memory through a forgotten electronic talking toy dinosaur. The story transitions between the past and present smoothly, with clear but subtle details of the father then—happy with his son on Christmas—and now as he wallows in misery, finishing with a bright, vibrant and effectively violent final panel.

“Eldorado” (written by Sherezada Windham Kent with art by Alex Cormack) is a fascinating and disturbing entry following a weary adventurer and his horse Aurelio, cursed to never die until they reach the eponymous legendary city of gold. Hopeful that “it will be enough” to end their decrepit journey, they enter a prospecting town of the same name and are immediately met by five dangerous characters. What follows is a stay in a rough, gun-driven place reduced to eating itself alive as a fire consumes whatever’s left behind. The art of deep, bold colors and ill-defined lines is perfectly balanced by the decaying, run-down setting, and the storytelling holds many tiny details that make what could be considered a simple idea into a disturbing new take on an old genre.

While the introduction establishes that one need not be well-versed in Poe’s work to enjoy the pieces within this collection, a few of them struggle to be equally engaging, or read as lifeless without a Poe refresher. “Zombie Cruise” (written by Marta Tanrikulu with art by Mark Mullaney) starts off with a fun idea complemented by a simple art style, with character designs somewhat reminiscent of Jeff Smith or Scott McCloud. Wyatt and his mad-cow-diseased wife Lydia take a cruise with Lydia’s sister Helen for rest and relaxation, only to unwittingly, through an administered experimental medication, spread a zombie infection while at sea. The plot becomes dull despite the potentially exciting and funny premise, and characters are introduced with established individual traits that seem to have little bearing on the events around them, while the nautical setting plays little part in the action. It was only after perusing Poe’s “The Oblong Box” that I understood the choices made in, and had a greater appreciation for, “Zombie Cruise.”

“Dead Man’s Hand” (written and illustrated by Phillip Jacobson), in which a young man who fancies himself the best poker player on campus makes an unfortunate bet for head of the table with a “weird chick…into the demon-goth Hot-Topic shit,” falls into the same, almost directionless area. While sporting a bouncy energy and an engaging design element (a combination of Penny Arcade and Vera Brosgol), the piece initially reads like a topic chosen in a creative writing class (“write eight pages, and the only rule is you must include a card game”). There’s an imbalance created in the care taken to describe the mundane details of the two protagonists and the antagonist—from what they look like to whom they hate and why—and the lack of motivation behind the action. Again, only a glance at the Poe inspiration, “Never Bet the Devil Your Head,” reveals what seems at first a banal story to be a clever twist on the old tale.

In between the main pieces are one-off pages of smart and hilarious 1800s culture and Poe commentary (art by Andrew Jerz and Jason Strutz). A faux coming-attraction insert that frames Lenore from “The Raven” as a demon-battling action heroine, and another page that places Poe himself listening through the floorboards for the “beating of the hideous cuteness” had me laughing even when sandwiched between tales of misery and murder.

The gloomy, despondent world that people ultimately create for themselves, and the details of the rising dead and decomposition, are themes common to not only Poe but to horror itself, and THE POE TWISTED ANTHOLOGY commits to its proposal of a visual tribute to the dark master of words while representing the genre’s wide range. It’s a fun read overall, full of new artists to keep an eye on—and got me looking up Poe again after 10 years.

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