The curious case of … the comic that was drawn twice!!!!!

I am fascinated by comics that get redrawn. The earliest one I can remember is Detective #627, which reprinted the first Batman story, the one DC did in the 1960s, and then two “new” stories drawn by Norm Breyfogle and Jim Aparo, who were the Batman artists at the time. It was very cool. Marvel has done a few of these over the past few years, with one artist drawing one page of classic Marvel issues, and I dig it how they interpret the script (they usually hew closely to the original, but it’s still pretty cool). I get that it’s not economically feasible to do this a lot, but I do wish Marvel and DC would do it a bit more often than they do. But I’m here to look at another comic, one you might have missed, that needed to be redrawn because of economic considerations, not just for the fun of it.

I’ve been a fan of writer El Torres for a while, since he was writing horror for IDW, and he seems like a swell dude (I’m Facebook friends with him), so I like to support his comics in single issue form. Torres started Amigo Comics so he could do his own thing, and while it seems to be defunct now (boooo!!!!), it still published some cool stuff. In 2018, Amigo published Phantasmagoria #1, which I bought. I didn’t read it, because I was waiting for the series to be complete, but … it never finished. Oh dear. But hark! Torres kept writing, and he got a new artist for the book, and a new publisher (Black Caravan), and not too long ago, Phantasmagoria #1 (the 2022 edition) came out. And I’m going to compare the two! Can you handle the excitement?!?!?!?

Ángel Hernández drew the original issue, and it’s in color, while the new version, which is drawn by Joe Bacardo, is in black and white. The 2018 version is glossy and thinner than the card stock of the Black Caravan issue, which is rougher and heavier. I still haven’t read either issue, so this is new for me, too!

Page 1 of the 2018 version has a nine-panel grid on Page 1, but it’s not a Giffen-esque grid. The top two rows, of six panels, lead to Panel 7, which is across the entire page, and then two panels at the bottom. The sequence begins with a clock bonging, with every other panel a black one, and we slowly pull out until we see, in Panel 7, a room full of fancy artwork, a pentagram painted on the floor, and a bunch of bloody corpses. Panel 9 pulls back from the room, and we’re looking into the house from the street. In the 2022 version, Bacardo uses a nine-panel grid, but the more traditional one, with the clock in Panel 1, and every other square a black one (with the credits in them). He shows close-ups on the artwork and various body parts, showing the grisly aftermath of whatever happened. We get the page turn, and that’s where we get a long shot of the room and the corpses, and at the bottom of the Page 2, we see the open door leading us out into the street. The big reveal of the room strewn with corpses works a bit better with the page turn.

In the 2018 version, Pages 2-6 form a scene on the street. This coincides with Pages 3-7 in the 2022 version. A young woman crawls toward a couple, begging for help. She points to a mysterious man, who seems to want to harm her. We think the man is evil, but then it quickly becomes clear that the woman is herself the problem, as she’s clearly possessed by something despicable. The man – “Professor Hawke,” we learn when he identifies himself to the demon – manages to exorcise her, but the demon escapes his grasp. In the original version, there is less blood on the woman, and she looks more like a monster than someone possessed. In the new version, Bacardo draws her to it’s clear that something is twisting her from the inside out, rather than the woman becoming something else. Torres makes an interesting change to the script. Originally, the demon says “You are the …” when it recognizes Hawke. In the new version, it says “You are one of the –” implying that Hawke is part of something bigger rather than something singular. Interesting.

In both versions, the next page (Page 7/Page 8) show the cops investigating the room, with Inspector Forrester expositing to his hapless underling, Wilkes, about the scene: it’s a Masonic Hall or “occultist lodge,” and the victims are prominent men – he recognizes two “wealthy landowners” and an “eminent doctor,” so the newspapers are going to have a field day with it. The page is laid out a bit differently, but nothing too wildly different. Each page is even five panels, although Hernández, for instance, uses a wider shot of the room than Bacardo does.

In the 2018 version, Pages 8-11 are another scene, as Hawke interviews the young woman who was possessed, whom he took to his home to convalesce so she wouldn’t be questioned by the police. This coincides with pages 9-12 of the new version, and nothing much has changed. The young woman, Jane Grantley, is awoken by a bad dream, in which creepy creatures claim ownership of her, and she talks with the professor about what happened to her. In Bacardo’s version, the housekeeper, Mrs. Bennet, appears to be a bit older and slightly more kindly-looking than Hernández’s version, and the bedroom in which Grantley wakes is a bit less cluttered with various cultural artifacts. She meets with Hawke and asks him to send a message to her fiancé, William Mathers, but when Hawke tells her not to bury what happened, she remembers that her husband-to-be is dead. Hernández draws the panel in which she remembers his death bloodier than Bacardo does – his William is upside-down, covered in blood, while Bacardo draws him with only a little blood trickling from his lip, hanged by a rope. She tells him that she was lured to London by the promise of marriage, but William only wanted her to be possessed by the demon, because they’re nothing but scoundrels. Hawke tells her they’re called the Societas Goetica in Anglia, and they’re a bunch of fools. He also tells her that the thing that possessed her got away, and we see a bird (a hawk, presumably) that our professor can apparently communicate with flying over London, leading us to a bedroom where the demon has gone into a girl’s doll, because that’s the creepiest place it could have gone! Hernández, with his thinner lines, makes the doll look more porcelain and deader, while Bacardo, with his rougher lines, makes the doll a bit more life-like and definitely more whore-ish. Both are disturbing, which is what they’re going for:

Page 12 in the 2018 version and Page 13 in the 2022 version are basically the same, as Jane leaves Hawke’s residence and he tells her he’ll check up on her but he thinks she’s not part of whatever’s going on anymore. Interestingly, in the original version, we learn that the book is taking place in 1897, as a passing dude holds an advertising placard that references Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, which took place in that year. In the 2022 version, that dude is missing, so the year is still a mystery (possibly because of another clue about the time that comes later, which I didn’t know about when I first wrote this, because, remember, I’m discovering this as I go along!). It’s not a big deal at all, but I do like getting the date from context clues rather than just by a text listing telling us when and/or where something is happening.

Pages 13-14/14-15 form another scene, with Jane arriving at her residence as the cops from earlier hang around, wanting to talk to her. They don’t, though, as Forrester points out that she arrived home in the “expensive private coach of some toff,” and he’s interested in whose coach it is. Oh dear. Then we shift back to the doll, which is being played with by a young girl. She thinks she hears the doll talk, and it’s interesting that in the first version, the word balloon is just a smooth round circle, while in the new version, it’s a bit more jagged. Everything contributes to mood in a comic, even the shape of the word balloons, and this is a pretty good one. Because of the extra page in the new version, the reveal on the next page isn’t after a page turn, so the fact that the girl’s parents are dead in the living room isn’t as big a shock as it is in the old version, where it comes on the left-hand Page 14 rather than the right-hand Page 15. There’s the disemboweled man sitting in a chair, a male servant half in the fire, a decapitated maid standing behind the man, and in the foreground, we see the bloody arm of the lady of the house. It’s a cool image. In the original, Hernández’s lines are still a bit cleaner, and for some reason, he doesn’t give us too many viscera. Bacardo has no such qualms:

Hawke sees the scene through the eyes of the hawk, so he knows things are bad. The new version is a bit more … I don’t know, it’s a bit more as if Hawke is somehow inside the bird, whereas in the 2018 version, it’s as if he’s simply able to see through the bird’s eyes. Here’s the difference, because I’m not doing a good job explaining it:

Hawke has his Boy Friday, Thomas, head off into the night, and Jane is haunted by something that sends her out into the night, as well. Both Hernández and Bacardo link Hawke’s vision of the dead family to Jane’s vision, and the visual consistency is nifty:

On Page 17, Torres changes Hawke’s words just slightly. In the 2018 version, he tells Thomas that “a family died today in a horrible way, but I cannot exactly locate where it all happened. And the outer fiend is still on the loose.” In 2022, we get “I know that a family has just died a horrible death, but I cannot pinpoint exactly where it happened. It is the work of the intruder, who has learned how to hide from my sight.” It’s a bit clearer in 2022 – in the first version, “the outer fiend” is clear, but a bit vague, and Hawke doesn’t say anything about it hiding from him. It’s a slight, but good, change in the dialogue. Off they head to “Bedlam,” because if you set an even slightly horror book in London prior to World War I, at some point you need to go to Bedlam!

Pages 20/21 see more tweaks in the dialogue, which makes things a bit clearer. Hernández uses four panels, while Bacardo uses five, and that gives Torres a tiny bit more room to open up the dialogue and give us a bit more of Hawke’s personality. In the first panel, a doctor tells Hawke that seeing a patient at such a late hour is inappropriate. In the original version, the panel stretches across the top third of the page, and the doctor continues by saying that this particular patient is crazier than most. Hawke says, “Thanks for accepting, Doctor Lyons,” which seems a bit casual for him and it feels a bit like a non sequitur. It doesn’t flow correctly, in other words. In the new version, we get two panels – in the first, the doctor tells Hawke it’s inappropriate, to which Hawke only responds, “Hm,” in an almost belittling fashion. In the next panel, not only does Bacardo add some creepy atmosphere in the form of arms reaching out to Hawke through the bars of cells, but Torres changes Hawke’s dialogue when the doctor talks about how crazy the patient is, by asking somewhat pointedly that the doctor has a lot of money to see to the patient’s care, money obviously provided by Hawke. In the original version, that’s missing, and the doctor simply says, in the second panel, that the patient rarely moves, but he can be aggressive, and does Hawke really want to see him alone? Hawke says, “I said thank you, Doctor Lyons,” dismissing him, but because his first “thank you” felt so odd, this dismissal doesn’t have as much as an impact. In the new version, the doctor begrudgingly admits that the money is sufficient, then says the same thing about the patient’s aggression. Hawke again says “Thank you,” but because this is his first time saying it, the doctor can interrupt briefly before Hawke says, the “I said thank you” line, which is more dismissive than in the original. A nice little change, and it shows that Hawke does not suffer any attempts to keep him from his path. I do like Hernández’s final panel more than Bacardo’s, as Hernández uses negative space a bit better:

The next page is almost the same – some slight changes in points of view, as Hernández draws the two men face on, while Bacardo does them in profile. The two men knew each other years earlier, and “Eliphas” – the man, although he claims to have left that name behind – mentions the Erebus and the Terror, and all good nerds ought to know what he’s talking about. Torres implies something supernatural happened out on the ice, and both artists do a nice job showing that (this issue takes place 40 years after that, but it appears aging doesn’t mean much to these gentlemen … unless, as I noted above, Torres ditched the dude with the broadsheet because he decided to not set it in 1897). On the next page, Eliphas tells Hawke that the “intruder” is now bound to Jane, and it’s interesting that in the 2022 version, Torres adds that the woman must be “innocent,” a word that wasn’t in the original version. Well, I found it interesting. Eliphas’s dialogue turns into narration as we see Jane in the street, walking to a door, which she pushes open and sees the girl sitting on the floor, waiting for her. Hernández makes the exterior of the house a bit rougher, while Bacardo makes it a bit more posh. It’s an interesting choice.

On the next page, we get an interesting contrast. In the first panel, Hawke realizes he’s made a mistake leaving Jane alone. In Hernández’s version, Hawke – who looks slightly younger than Bacardo’s version – looks more puzzled than upset, while Bacardo manages to get across the gravity of what Hawke has done a bit better. Bacardo again uses more panels – Hernández has Eliphas say many things in one panel that Bacardo stretches out over three, making the import of what he’s saying hit harder. Bacardo makes an interesting artistic choice on the page – in the first panel, he shades Hawke’s face to show the shadows of the cell’s bars striping his face, and when we pull back from Eliphas in his cell, he uses bands of white to show the shadows cast by the window’s bars on the black floor. In the final panel, as Hawke hurries away in his carriage, the crossed pattern of the carriage’s window again shadows Hawke’s face, linking him to Eliphas and, metaphorically, showing that he’s as caged as the madman in Bedlam. Hernández’s art on this page is quite good, but he doesn’t do anything subtle like that.

The final page of the issue has some interesting differences, as well. Hernández uses seven panels, while Bacardo uses eight. Eliphas is free, and Doctor Lyons is signing papers that will release him from the hospital. How he got out of his cell is not shown. He shaves his beard, so he’s looking sleek, and Lyons is completely cowed. Lyons asks him what name he should put on the paper, and Eliphas tells him “Edwin Drood,” implying that he was buddies with Dickens (Dickens was long dead by 1897, of course … unless, again, Torres has moved the date back in time). In the first version, Eliphas implies that all the drugs Lyons gave him did something to help him get out. He says, “Of course, the interest you took on my health produced its results. All those drugs, doctor … I’m quite grateful.” In the second version, Eliphas says, “Although your therapeutic approach leaves much to be desired, you are an excellent bureaucrat. But all that I needed was this visit from my … friend to awaken me.” Torres changed his mind, apparently, and wanted to imply that Hawke’s presence spurred Eliphas forward, as they’re enemies, and he doesn’t need drugs to “awaken.” It’s interesting. Bacardo makes Lyons a bit more pathetic and haggard than Hernández, while the final panel by Hernández is a bit more sinister, as Eliphas is folding the straight razor menacingly, and in the 2022 version, there’s no razor and it’s not quite as creepy. But that’s just my opinion.

So that’s the first issue of Phantasmagoria, twice. It’s fascinating to me to see the slight changes in the artwork and the dialogue – obviously, Torres can simply change his mind about the words, while the artists can interpret the script in different ways. One of the problems Amigo had, it seems, was keeping artists, and in 2019, the second issue of the series had a different artist. The second issue of the 2022 version has come out (I’ve been a bit busy traveling the world, so I didn’t get this done before issue #2 came out!), so I could do this with the second issue, too! (But I won’t.) Torres has shown that he knows how to write good horror, so give Phantasmagoria a look. I’ve been waiting four years to read the whole thing, and it appears I won’t have to wait too much longer!