The Creep (Comics)
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Way back in 1991, John Arcudi approached Dale Eaglesham with this idea of a comic book about a man suffering from acromegaly, a debilitating disease which causes your bones to enlarge and become brittle. John and Dale then developed it together, creating the poignant tale of Oxel Karnhaus, a man whose face caused heads to turn, to say the least. Oxel’s physical appearance led him to a life of utter loneliness and relative poverty. As a third-rate private detective, he couldn‘t exactly go unnoticed when tagging someone, and gaining a client’s trust was not always an easy matter. Kids called him The Creep, because of his illness and sheer size. As a detective with this disease, Oxel lived an ironic situation: He was a scary-looking and very large man, which could come in handy when facing a criminal, but on the other hand, his bones were so brittle that an angry twelve-year-old girl could have become a serious threat to his life. This Dark Horse Presents series was shot from the pencils. They were never inked, nor colored. John’s stories were touching, challenging our society’s chronic apathy, while Dale Eaglesham raw art haunted and shocked us. There was real suspense in the cases presented. One arc described how a woman’s search for her birth mother leads her to hiring Oxel.
We are brought to the shocking conclusion when the young woman brutally murders her mother upon finally finding her.
Another arc dealt with a murder that The Creep investigates. In his research, he encounters a video that incriminates a rebellious but rather wimpy-looking teenager. For this scene, in order to replicate a TV screen effect, Dale Eaglesham actually drew the video images using only horizontal lines (see right). The result is something to marvel at.
The last arc dealt with Oxel’s reactions to finding a lost dog while investigating another case. They meet when the dog steals Oxel’s sandwich off a park bench, but soon it’s his heart that’s stolen, as he realizes that he has finally found unconditional companionship. We see his attachment grow, only to have a little girl claim the dog, in a heartbreaking final scene.
It is a classic series not to be missed, and certainly never to be forgotten…
