Silent Hill Omnibus [Paperback]

The Silent Hill Omnibus contains the following comics:
* Dying Inside
* Three Bloody Tales (which consists of three stories...)
- Among the Damned
- Paint It Black
- The Grinning Man
* Dead/Alive

The plots are all written by the same author, and there are numerous recurring characters and continuing plot threads between the stories, although perhaps you don't need to have read them all or in order (although you might as well). These are all the Silent Hill graphic novels to date apart from the recent Sinner's Reward. (Btw, Sinner's Reward doesn't connect to these stories plots, and can be read alone.)

Overall, I found these stories to be pretty disappointing for many reasons. For example, in the games your primary weapon was often a piece of lead pipe, while the graphic novels seem to suggest there a piles of automatic weapons and ammo lying everywhere around Silent Hill, since everyone who goes there seems to be heavily armed and shooting stuff. Also while the games had virtually no swearing, there is constant swearing in these stories. I wasn't offended; it's just that it makes it feel all the characters seem psyched up and hyperaggressive, rather then scared or bewildered by the reality bending town.

While the twisted nature of the monsters was an important part of the games, there representation in the comics is mixed. It's nice to recognise the "Sniffer Dogs" from Silent Hill 4 in Dead/Alive for example, but for the most part the monsters are too often just a black silhouette with teeth or some scribbled tentacles. A down point in the book is when the infamous zombie nurses talk. STUPID!

The biggest problem though is that the plots after a while concentrate on the idea that some special people can bend the reality in Silent Hill to their will, like Alyssia did. As a result Silent Hill becomes a place where people want to be, and the story focuses on these characters struggle for control of the town. Any concept of the town actually being a terrifying place to be get pushed aside, as well as any psychological angle to the story. It should also be noted that the plots are close to incomprehensible.

If a bunch of heavily armed guys with automatic weapons mowing down hordes of monsters with exciting captions such as "BAM BAM" doesn't make you think of Silent Hill, then skip this and get Sinner's Reward instead. That's much better.

Based on the video game series of the same name, this book collects various one-shots and mini-series comics that intertwine with the Silent Hill lore.

The first story, collecting the 5-issue series Silent Hill: Dying Inside, is the story of a man named Troy Abernathy and his quest to cure a girl named Lynn after she came back from a town called Silent Hill where she tried filming a movie. He takes her back to the town and finds himself in a horrible world filled with his own fears coming to get him. All of this done by an evil little girl named Christabella who seeks out his soul. However, Christabella's sister Lauryn stumbles upon the town after finding the film and brings her friends to shoot at the site and make some money. However, she is forced to battle her own demons and her little sister and right the wrongs she's made in order to make it through the terrifying ordeal!

The second story, Among the Damned, tells the tale of a soldier named Jason that, right before offing himself, crashes his car and wanders into Silent Hill. He comes across Dahlia, a singer that he's familiar with and he makes an attempt to save her from his own nightmares. However, even with all the firepower he's packing, he'll need some friendly help to make it out.

Paint it Black is the third story in the book and another one-shot. It follows Ike, a loner and a painter who finds Silent Hill after being kicked out of just about everywhere else he could go. However, despite being inspired to paint again after a long artist's block, he paints the evil creatures lurking around the city and preying on anyone else who wanders in. When a cheer-leading squad stumbles across the foggy town, Ike finds himself in a race for survival with lots of girls with guns and ends up fighting off the town itself!

In the third one-shot, The Grinning Man, Tower, a police officer on his last day of work, is playing a prank on his replacement, Mayberry, in the town of Silent Hill. Although Tower goes into Silent Hill regularly, he sees nothing out of the ordinary. However, the `monster prank' turns very real as the Grinning Man is taking over real people and using them, along with his magic, to turn Silent Hill into his own playground and it's up to Mayberry and Tower to stop this crazy madman!

The finale of the book closes with the Dead/Alive five-issue series that connects with Dying Inside and Paint It Black. Ike, now Lauryn's boyfriend, helps Kenneth Carter find his ex-girlfriend in Silent Hill after being teleported there through one of Ike's paintings. Christabella appears and guides (or manipulates) Kenneth through the wretched town as Lenora, an evil witch, brings unspeakable evil upon them in the misty town.

Dying Inside was a confusing story with a lot of pieces of it that seemed pointless. The story kind of jumps from one thing to another and is very hard to follow. If you follow it all the way through, it still isn't that great of a story. On top of that, it's extremely departed from the "in-game universe" that the video games established. The fact that Lauryn basically gained control of Silent Hill really disconnects it from the games all together. On top of that, Alessa or any of the other characters aren't mentioned once. The art doesn't help matters. Half of the time, you're staring down a panel trying to figure out who's talking or what in the world is going on. It's so bad at times that it's like trying to figure out a Picasso painting. While some may praise this sketchy, messy art style, I am not one of those people and would rather not have to break down and analyze every panel to get a grip on what I'm looking at. It's not a great story but it at least establishes some of the stories to come.

Among the Damned was an OK one-shot and, while the art is better this time around, it's still messy. Thankfully, there aren't too many characters to follow. The story gets goofy at times with Jason and his dead comrade blasting away at the monsters with M16s and semi-automatic pistols but the story progresses into something that's at least interesting.

Paint it Black is a fairly boring story that makes you read it two or three times to really grasp what in the world's going on. It's hard to follow but the art's a little better this time around with most of the characters being fairly easily discernible. However, the story itself is terrible in that a cheer-leading squad suddenly goes gung-ho with machine guns and combat uniforms in a hunt for their squad mates and takes Ike along for the ride. Ike is not a likeable character nor are any of the cheerleaders which, as a whole, brings the story down a lot. Grinning Man is another story that takes a few reads to know the basic gist of the story. It's a better story than some of these others but still not good enough to really immerse you into the comic. The art, as with the others, is poorly done in a style that's too loosely drawn to properly convey this story. The writing's okay but the pacing and storytelling is horrible. During my first read, I missed several key points in the plot because it was either mentioned indirectly or just paced really weird. This wasn't a particularly great story and is very disconnected from normal Silent Hill lore but is a little better than the rest.

The final story arc is just like Dying Inside and contains the ever-annoying Ike and the potty-mouthed child Christabella once again. Lauryn makes an appearance and the story (if you can call it that) revolves around an actor named Kenneth who a witch named Lenora is trying to frame for various real-world murders. The art, once again, is terrible and you rarely can tell who the characters are and the blob-like shapes for monsters do not help the atmosphere. Also, making some of the monsters and nurses talk like babbling idiots wasn't fun to read at all and really killed the scariness of it (assuming there was some to begin with.) Once again, not a very good story. Overall, this book was boring. Plain and simple, it wasn't a fun read. I was really excited to get into Silent Hill stories that veered from the games and what I got was a bunch of terrible drawings and horrible writing to go along with it. Unless you're a collector, this isn't worth it. Not even for the fans.

If you just played the games because you thought they were creepy and kinda cool, then this probably isn't for you. If however, you like the universe of Silent Hill, the atmosphere, and the ongoing story, then definately check these out. If you enjoy graphic novels too, then these are fun. The story at first seems eratic, but the last section brings it all together and puts the story into place (like so often happens in silent hill). Overall definately worth reading.