Nobody Is Talking About This Bad Idea Horror Book… But They Should Be

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Bad idea just dropped a new horror book, but almost no one's talking about it.

That might be a big mistake.

Jace here with an indie review, it's the have number one from Bad Idea.

We have Josh Dysart as the writer, several artists contributing to the

interiors, including David Lapham, Wilson Kevitch, Jacob Phillips.

We've got Matt Hollinsworth on colors, along with Bill Crabtree,

and then letters by Simon Boland.

So, I mean, Jacob Phillips being the youngest of those creators,

but even he is approaching legendary status, certainly very respected for a lot of the books he's

done, especially with Chris Condon, that Texas Blood and what have you.

When we talk about other people that I mentioned,

I mean, even Bill Crabtree and Simon Boland on colors and letters.

Those guys are amazing, but we're talking about Josh Dysart,

you know, Eisner Award winner, David Lapham, Eisner Award winner,

Wilson Kevitch, Eisner Award winner.

I mean, this is an incredible lineup of talent that Bad Idea has assembled for this book.

Originally called Habitat, they delayed it a little bit, they had changed the name to the

Hab, and basically this is the story of the world outside your window going to Crap

and this technological oligarch who is a really, really smart name, Tuttle,

has created this Habitat to bring his, I think it's his fifth wife, his daughter and a staff

so they can basically survive the end of the world.

So, you know, this isn't the most original idea in the world, but in the hands of these creators,

it becomes something that's much greater than the sum of its parts.

I was blown away, I really enjoyed it.

I think not enough people talk about Bad Idea books.

You know, I should be covering them more because I love them so much.

It's just a matter of having the time to do so.

So, anyway, we get a picture at one point.

It's a great layout here, multi-layered.

We've seen these in comics.

Time it again, and they're always so fun to pour over.

We get kind of this internal cross-section of the Habitat

from David Lapham, and it's awesome, but one thing of note when we get to this image is it talks

about how this was built basically over this gigantic underground lake, which is this incredible

find, this really pure water that this oligarch Tuttle found at one point.

And we're told that when he found it, he chose not to exploit it and pump out this really

clean water and sell it or whatever he could do with it, but instead he chose to preserve

nature, whatever, all along building this Habitat over the top of it.

So, what appears to be altruistic is really selfish.

And we get hints of this later on because there is the last few pages of the book.

Well, sort of the last few pages, I'll get to that.

But where he is actually on his way to his Greek island, yes, he owns an island

on this mega yacht. His daughter comes in a helicopter. She's been evacuated from Europe where things

are getting really bad riots and whatever. And he's on this boat and he's watching a newscast,

and they talk about the human colony collapse theory and what have you, which I'm sure is a

real theory that Josh Dysart has researched. I'm going to have to take a look and see if I can

find some information about it as well. But anyway, his daughter comes to the boat. They're on their

way to this island retreat, what have you, and all of a sudden these jets fly over the top of the

boat and basically what they have to turn around. What they find out is that his private island has

been taken over by the Greek government. They need a place to go and hide out. And so he's not

able to go there. He gets really upset. And so that, I mean, it's not explicitly stated, but it

feels like that was the moment that this idea came that he needed a place that other people

couldn't get to. Other people couldn't take over and what have you. And so the one word that I

would use to describe the story more than anything is layered. There's so many different layers to

this. And that's why this is such a great creative team to put this together because every one of

these guys has a real humanity in their art. And I'll talk a little bit of, or they're

sort of telling in the case of Josh Dysart. His Eisner award was for Unknown Soldier, which

so interesting. He took it from the perspective of the rifle that's passed around in these

horrible boyhood armies, I guess you would say, where these warlords in Africa are recruiting

these young boys, five, six, seven, eight years old. A few of them live past 13 or 14. And it was

from this rifle that had been passed around this instrument of death. And so that's what we're seeing

here in the Hab. We're seeing this layered approach, but also a little bit of a shorthand approach

as well. We all know looking outside the window, the world is, is awful right now. And so it's not

too far of a stretch, you know, to call this plausible. Yes, it's science fiction. Yes, it's horror,

a hundred percent. I'll get to that in a second as well. But it feels all too real. It feels

all too much like this could happen. There's even news reports of people like Jeff Bezos and

Mark Zuckerberg and what have you building these gigantic bunkers in case the world does go to crap

or maybe I shouldn't even say if, but when? Sometimes it feels like so. But as all things in life,

and this is again the hoop where the humanity comes in. And why I love the way this is structured

and both narratively and visually and what have you. The life is messy, right? And just like the

world outside their window is going to crap in the habitat or the Hab rather. There's this idea

that they can't really escape it. They can't. And should you, that's the other question right,

should you as a human being when we've sort of killed ourselves and brought ourselves to the

brink of extinction, do we as a species deserves to survive? And just because you have the

technological know-how and the financial means to build and escape, do you actually deserve to escape?

So even though they go to the habitat and they think this water source is pure, we find out

very quickly and they find out very quickly the doctor that's there surmises us relatively quickly

because there's a couple of the technicians that attack each other. The daughter of Tuttle,

the oligarch, she starts having visions and nightmares and hallucinations. In her specific case,

the kids had it rough, you know, all these different step moms loved her mom but her mom and her

dad were very antagonistic and the world came to an end basically her dad rescued her from

Europe but left her mom behind. Excuse me, just a terrible stuff. But she apparently at one point

turned to drugs for an escape and she, while she was high, ran over and killed this woman.

And that's her hallucination. This woman has come back to haunt her. Meanwhile, you know,

I mentioned the technicians. That's almost more horrific in the hands of David Lapham,

where the one turns on the other and there's, and the funny thing is they're, they're having

auditory hallucinations as well. They're saying, oh, you've got to get the love out. I hear you,

you know, you're a voice in your head is calling out to me. I weep for you. You must die. We've

got to release the love and what have you. So I can't, these people thought that they were escaping

the horrible things that humanity and society have done to the world but all they've done is sort

of distill all those sins down to the few people that are in the Hab and those sins are still

coming to bear in a way. It's almost like karma wasn't going to let them escape. And so again,

it's a great story. It's horrific but and a lot of this is set up in a lot of ways but again,

that layering because we don't necessarily see or need to see the world falling apart. That

layer is sort of implied. And so when, you know, we get the first page, we're seeing them inside the

habitat on that first day and they're going around and setting things up and what have you.

And so we do get a little bit of set up then but set up for, you know, within the Hab and a

little bit of context for the outside world but that's where the humanity and the relationships

and the great dialogue from Joshua Dysart, you know, the other word I'd use other than

humanity and feeling natural is just the ease of which it's not easy for Josh. He's told me that

but the ease with which it seems he gives us the dialogue and the relationships and what have you

and that other word I used just the natural feel of it. And so we spend a little bit of time

setting it up and yes, it's an extraordinary situation but it's not a horrific situation at first,

not until we get to this scene. Well, I guess first the scene where the daughter that I mentioned

Melanie sees the woman that she killed has that vision and the woman talking to her even and

then the technicians, you know, one attacking the other with this plasma torch and then

turning the torch on himself which is just, you know, horrific. And then others, other people

starting to feel a little different that doctor himself noticing symptoms and trying to reach

Tuttle to let him know, reach him within the habit to let him know, hey, I think the water

sources contaminate and what have you. And then we get that flashback, as I said, flashback three

years prior and get that scene on the yacht where we get the context about the Greek island, what have

you. And then we get a we get a just a black page which is interesting because it says at the end

of that final page after the doctor has tried to contact Tuttle, Tuttle is actually in his mother's

room trying to comfort her because she's seen things and he starts seeing things as well and we get

hey to be continued and then we get a black page and then we get these incredible interior pages

from Billson cabbage with the Bill Crabtree colors. I mean incredible. And if I had to guess

because I have to guess this is sort of the society that lives in that water or lived in that water

or they're the reason the water is contaminated. They have something to do with the water. They do

speak but in the word balloons we get on these pages and this one doesn't have any of the word

word balloons because it's pulled from a preview. But the word the dialogue that we see in those

word balloons is just a bunch of symbols. And so we can't really understand what's going on.

In terms of what they're talking about but it does seem to be again some society who

there's trauma going on. I mean just look at that final panel from Billson cabbage. I mean

it's incredible. So I'm sure in some way that's going to be explained at some point it's going to

tie in. Again I think it has to do with the water, the karma, the fact that we can't escape our

sins as a species. A lot of layers to this but I do want to also mention you know I'm really digging

deep here from the knowledge I have of Joshua Dysart and you know the things I know that are

interesting to him in terms of exploring the human condition and what have you having had them

on the show. A bunch of times I haven't had conversations with him but if you just want to read

this for entertainment value just as a horror story it still checks all the boxes. You know you

start with that setup it seems like these people are in a good place they've escaped the end of

the world they have everything they need you know tons of supplies and electricity dedicated satellite

that's beaming down solar energy to them like they seem like they're well off especially compared

to the hits we get of the you know outside world. And so you get a little bit of that sense of

safety despite the fact that they're all pretty amped up you know this is obviously a traumatic

experience and what have you dealing with the end of the world and maybe a little bit of guilt

over surviving and and morning from loved ones who didn't who who weren't invited along

but that setup and then the flip from from Josh where it gets you know really horrific and even

the David Lapemart which you know again we want to talk about humanity as I mentioned the humanity

in David Lapem's art he's obviously very well known for that and you know he does a fantastic job

as well he's not somebody I'd necessarily would associate with or we when you look at this page

and I love how the panels are separated with the plasma torch you know lines of plasma there

but it gets pretty horrific pretty quickly so again if you don't really and I don't really read

too much in my comics or like to think about the big ideas behind them or whatever I just want to be

entertained this still checks all those boxes gorgeous art it is horror there is suspense it again

a little bit of more of a setup issue for issue one if you don't want to look into those ideas or

spend some time thinking about them but this got scary really quickly and I imagine that's going

to continue and obviously we have the mystery portion as well with with those final scene cabbage

pages as I said that society whatever it might be I also want to show off some of the covers this

is one of the variant cover I think this is one in 20 or 125 by Aaron Campbell

guy pulling out his eye I guess the implication there being you're having these hallucinations

things are so so horrible you don't even want to see them to the point where you'd pull out your own

eye pretty horrible there's also a a Steve Beach cover featuring Melanie she has that helmet on

I guess to breathe oxygen and not be you know contaminants or what have you and then there's

a final one that I wanted to show I think this is a retailer exclusive David Lapham cover we see a

woman there that could be perhaps the stepmom or perhaps it's someone else I'm not a hundred

percent sure it might be one of the people of the that tribe or whatever might be that woman

that we saw on the very last panel in fact I think that's probably who it is we have we don't

actually know who she is yet at this point but regardless I'm all in on on the have you know

I did expect to like this despite me not being a huge horror guy and I don't think Josh is

written much horror I don't think he's worked at David Lapham before which is a true crime honestly

and so I'm glad they're collaborating now because again the humanity and Lapham's art

the humanity in Josh's storytelling it's a perfect matchup it is a match made in heaven

and so again despite not being a huge horror fan I love the big ideas that Josh is exploring here

I love the suspense I love the setup I love the bilson cabbage pages I love the mystery

and I can't wait to see where this goes so I definitely recommend picking up the have one final

thing I should mention it is on newsprint which I really appreciate you get that smell you get that

feel don't go thinking bad ideas being cheap it actually costs more that newsprint costs more

and it costs more to print the books and it makes sense when you think about it right like

current printer setups current you know print companies or what have you

that print these comics the printers are set up to print on the the white paper that we're used to

the glossy paper and so when you need them to change the setup on a machine and maybe it's a

different machine I don't know but when you need them to set up the print on newsprint that's

kind of a boutique thing that's a specialty thing it costs more to print newsprint the newsprint

itself costs more so I've heard people saying oh bad ideas being cheap no it's actually the other

way and I only say that to say that bad ideas production values are amazing it's a thicker cover

sock than you get like a marvel or dc this this main covers by Charlie Adler which is awesome as

well there's just to me nothing not to like about the have and it gets my highest possible

recommendation so I hope you guys all check it out just so everybody knows I'm not doing a Marvel

review this week there just wasn't a book that really kind of lent itself to do in a Marvel

review so I'm going to do three indie reviews so again if you like this kind of content please

consider subscribing and if you want the dc books of the week be sure to head over to the comic

boom youtube channel or listen on the comics or podcast where we check out and talk about every

single dc book that came out this week so anyway that's going to do for this episode everybody

appreciate you joining as always and we'll talk to you next time

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