Free Comics Get the Bump

Updated - see below

Roland turned me on to WOWIO, a site for advertising-sponsored ebooks. It includes quite an array of comics as well as novels and non-fiction.

Basically after you sign up and prove you're you for the advertisers by one verification method or another, they generate .pdf files with a full-page ad up front. I used a permanent e-mail address to qualify myself and that took about a day.

The eproducts are customized with your name, so they know if you passed the book on, kind of like those screener DVDs from the Academy, I suppose. You can download three items a day, by the way.

I was pleasantly surprised by the comics selection. Moonstone even has a few titles in the mix including a couple of its graphic novels featuring The Phantom--the ghost who walks in purple--and an adaptation of the original Kolchak novel/movie.

Bump
My discovery in the mix is a comic book adaptation of a film called Bump. It's apparently in the works with Tobin Bell slated to star. Apparently he's the only one cast so far, but they're working on that according to the official website.

The comic, from The Scream Factory, is a beautifully drawn horrorfest. At first I was thinking, "Well this is another The Hills Have Eyes," but things twist and turn pretty quickly with a scary prologue focusing on a killer reminiscent of the real life Ed Gein who also inspired Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Then we jump ahead 30 years to a group of people who wind up trapped in the killer's farmhouse where he's not dead and neither are his victims.

I suspect reading the book on-screen as a .pdf is a plus especially when you get to the action portions where I got a sense of movement, scrolling upward as large, flashing panels revealed chases and scares.

I was a little dissatisfied with the ending, but all in all a nice--though be warned: gory-- four issues.

I've also snagged a few other titles so far including a Moonstone adaptation of The Mysterious Traveler, a new spin on the old radio series giving the traveler a role more significant than host, and a series called Carnival of Souls that seems to be more than an adaptation of the classic early indy horror flick with waltzing zombies. I should mention there are also some '50s classics in the mix. EC-flavored if not actual EC titles, and some of the artists represented include Jack Kirby and Joe Kubert. You'll also find, I think, the complete run of Clive Barker's Tapping The Vein, comic adaptations.

And I haven't even gotten around to checking out the mystery novels yet.

Addendum
(Posted 4/10/08)
Troy Brownfield from The Scream Factory dropped by to comment earlier in the week that more Bump casting news would be coming soon. He wasn't kidding.

Young Indiana Jones himself Sean Patrick Flanery will be playing Bret and Hellraiser's Ashley Laurence will be Elaine. They are now attached to the film according to The Scream Factory's My Space Blog. They're a troubled couple who get stranded in the horribly haunted house where much of the story takes place.