WOLFF & BYRD, COUNSELORS OF THE MACABRE #9 – Ben’s Horror-Comic-Athon October 2018 #3

In the spirit of Halloween, Ben is reading one horror comic every night before he goes to bed. Will they keep him up? Or will they put him to sleep? We’ll find out…

It’s October 3rd. Can I keep this up? We’ll find out. But like last night, I decided to use this as a chance to read something I’d intended to read for a while…

ENTRY THREE:

WOLFF & BYRD, COUNSELORS OF THE MACABRE #9 – Exhibit A Press; Batton Lash, artist and writer; published 1995

When I was going through my collection (as I mentioned yesterday), another couple of books I found were collections of WOLFF & BYRD, COUNSELORS OF THE MACABRE. I had purchased these books YEARS ago but never got around to reading them. Unlike Creature Commandos, I immediately read these two volumes, containing issues 1-8 of the series.

And then I immediately purchased the collection that contained the next eight issues.

So tonight I read issue 9.

First, an explanation of what Wolff and Byrd is: imagine Ally McBeal or The Practice or another David E. Kelly law dramedy, but it’s populated by monsters, ghouls, and other supernatural beings who need legal help. Now, give it the wordplay of a well written Mad Magazine comic. It’s Night Court by way of Twilight Zone. LA Law by way of EC Comics.

And it’s great.

(Oh, and there’s a subplot running through every issue featuring a swamp monster that they are defending.)

This issue was a great parody of The X-Files, as a UFO enthusiast is suspected of kidnapping his daughter, but he claims she was abducted by aliens. Aliens are involved, but there’s a couple twists.

I’m moving into spoilers here. It almost can’t be helped with short form horror stories, because so much of what there is to talk about rests on the twist. And the twist here is wonderful. It seems Agent Muldoon believed his sister was abducted by aliens because she WAS abducted by aliens . . . but HE (and his sister) actually ARE aliens and the aliens they were abducted by were HUMANS. Or at least earth dwellers. This investigation actually has him finding his people and going to space with them. Meanwhile, another twist is that the bureau hires aliens who have been left behind on earth to investigate alien sightings because they might find their own people to get back him.

And this all works as the law office drama continues from the previous issues and also as puns and sci-fi /horror references get dropped left and right.

It makes me a little sad. The title of the comic was changed from Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre to Supernatural Law because an potential TV series would have used the second name.

Man, do I wish that series would’ve happened.

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You can read the rest of this series here: Ben’s Horror-Comic-Athon October 2018

While Ben’s not podcasting daily for the entire month, The Comic Book Time Machine will be going daily for a week at the end of October. Don’t miss our WEEK OF WEIRD, as we explore some weird comics from October 25-31!