Written by: Tim Seeley
Illustrated by: Stefano Casseli,
& Federica Madfredi
Published by: DDP
About 7 years ago while hunting down the newest issues of Spawn,Witchblade, The Darkness, & The Walking Dead I came across the first issue of Hack/Slash (which I still have) released by the now dead DDP. I picked it up thinking it had some kind of video game basis, (it didn’t) and I’ve been hooked like a crack addicted sea-bass ever since. So much that I started collecting the tpb’s as well as the floppies. So allow me to introduce the greatest thing to happen to slashers since the machete… Miss Cassie Hack and her BFF Vlad.
Cassie Hack is a smoking hot chick with a really big bone to pick….. namely with slashers. She is the badass survivor girl of the era. Armed with a spiked bat that reads “Kiss it”, and a masked hulking monster of a bastard named Vlad, she has been keeping the world safe from slashers since she first had to kill her undead mom. You see when Cassie was little, and kids picked on her in school, her lunch-lady mom decided to take it upon her herself to punish them. Lunch-lady style. She started cooking the little piss-ants. Just carved ‘em up and threw ‘em in the pot to be served to their piss-ant peers. Eventually she was caught, and killed johnny on the spot. Through a twisted series of gory events Cassie the “slasher of slashers” was born in the blood of her own undead mother.
Paired with Vlad a bodyguard of few words, because when you’re a giant mutant-looking, ass-kicking machine words don’t matter; they travel from locale to locale tracking down slashers to slice & dice. Vlad’s purpose is simple; to kick ass, and keep his only friend Cassie from becoming the next slasher victim (like that would ever happen).
First Cut collects the original issue (released in 2004 so I’m going back now) illustrated by the venerable Stefano Casseli. The arc all about zombie animals, and a wronged retard turned slasher. Now wronged retards have always had a history in slasher flicks (I’m looking at you Jason) so this isn’t exactly new ground for the sub-genre, though zombie-animals is certainly an unexpected turn for the WTF!! It also collects “Girls Gone Dead” which is penciled by Italian artist Federica Manfredi. This arc concerns Spring Break (which is a veritable hunting ground for slashers), and a scorned, overly religious chick with a cross wielding slasher of her own. The third arc it collects is “Comic Book Carnage” which is also coincidentally illustrated by Federica Manfredi, and meta-fictionally starring such comic book heavies as Robert Kirkman, Steve Niles, Skottie Young, & Tromette of the month Messy Stench (don’t expect too many dates with a name like that) who is almost identical to an old friend of mine. This one takes place at a comic book convention (aka the greatest events on earth.. Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey who?) when a mini-slasher attacks in full pint-sized force (notice a common theme here). The fourth arc “Slashing Through the Snow” is a cute, poetic, albeit skippable slasher Christmas special spoofing ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”. The whole tpb is then wrapped up with 25 pages of extras in the form of a cover gallery, character sketches, the script to a stage-play performed by the Millennium Theater Company in 2005, as well as slasher files on all the slashers appearing in this volume ( All 4 of them).
With wild-fire action, and possibly one of the hottest comic chicks ever, you can bet your ascot this is one explosive muthaflipper. There are tons of crossovers so chances are you’ll get to see her kick some familiar slasher ass again and again. (ie: Chucky, Herbert West, Dexter, Mr. Voorhies, Evil Ernie, The Suicide Girls, & Bump). The series is chiefly compromised of unrelated stand-alone story-arcs, which is great if you’re new to the series because you can jump in at any time without copious quantities of confusion (unless you pick up random issues from the first or second ongoing’s). The illustrating is done by various artists who seem to up the ante each time around; making each arc bloodier than the last, and stoking Cassie’s utter hotness until it becomes a bona fide inferno. Cover art will have every boy yanking his foreskin off. And the ass-kickery will have every chick cheering for our heroines skull-cracking-girl-power.
There has been talk of a major motion picture for years now (which is like my wet dream), but I don’t know if it will ever go into development at this point. A must read for fans of hot chicks, and slashers! I doubt anyone who picked this up wouldn’t have fun with it, unless of course they’re allergic to a good time (which some people unfortunately are). The comic never seems to take itself too seriously (but what slasher ever really does?) It’s a fast, frenetic read. Cassie is sassy, (lol) and mostly naked damn near all of the time. But hey you can do that when you’re a hot, half naked, slasher-ass-whipping force to be reckoned with.
So if you’re still sitting here reading WTF!! Get the schmuck up, go the schmuck out, and schmuckin’ get this. There are several TPB’s (about 6 issues each, and easier to read than a wrist watch) & a few Omnibus’ (which collect about 4 tpb’s a piece, but are clunky & overly cumbersome). Some of you might want to pick up the regular monthly issues though, as they have some of the hottest spank-bank cover-art material ever!
Keep in mind it has a new ongoing monthly series with no end in sight. It used to be under the DDP label but now it’s being released by Image. Fun times to be had with this one….so if you’re not as blind as a headless bat, and your head isn’t stuck in an elevator, I would highly suggest you go read this… like immediately!!
