Adaptation April #5: Silent Hill: Dead/Alive Issue #5

Chapter 5

Christabella thinks that Connie looks like a goddess. “I hate that.

Fuck, I am so screwed. I can feel this thing’s power. It doesn’t give two shits about being worshiped. And it sure as hell isn’t going to explain itself to me.”

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Adaptation April #5: Silent Hill: Dead/Alive Issue #4

Chapter 4

Right off the bat, this issue is different than the others, because Nick Stakal has made a major shift in his artwork. It’s much more colorful than it was before.

Christabella throws the keris into Lenora’s chest. “Fuck. That’s gonna leave a mark.”

The “mayor” tells her that it’s impossible for her to die because she’s Jezebeth, the goddess and ancient one.

Christabella thinks that she never quite feels like herself unless she has blood on her hands.

The clock is stuck at one minute before midnight. The monsters are going out of control because Lenora was wounded.

She recognizes that the keris steals souls. “Might help if I had a soul…”

Adaptation April #5: Silent Hill: Dead/Alive Issue #3

Chapter 3

Ike cocks his shotgun. “Let’s party like it’s 1999, bitch.”

Both Kenneth and Christabella say, “O-kayyy…” Acknowledgment that Ike is supposed to be cheesy in-story.

Ike and Kenneth’s dog Bear begin to fight off the monsters. Kenneth realizes that Bear somehow turned the horrible cannibal vampire dogs from Silent Hill 4: The Room into his posse.

Kenneth narrates to himself that Lenora the witch claims that she can tell him who his birth parents were and why he’s so drawn to Silent Hill, and why he thinks it’s beautiful. Why it feels like… home.

Some blood gets splattered onto Christabella, energizing her. Is she a vampire now? “Feeling much better now. Hey, cocksuckers! Wanna play?” sigh

Adaptation April #5: Silent Hill: Dead/Alive Issues 1-2

Silent Hill: Dead/Alive

Writer: Scott Ciencin

Artist: Nick Stakal

The back cover misspells “murderous” as “murderess”.

Our comic begins with Christabella summing up some of the backstory on how Silent Hill was once a nice, quiet little town until The Order fixed all of that. “They made it into my kind of town.”

Adaptation April #4: Silent Hill: The Grinning Man

Silent Hill: The Grinning Man

Writer: Scott Ciencin

Artist: Nick Stakal

The cover was blessed by the talents of Ben Templesmith once again; he worked with Alex Garner. Templesmith’s influence mainly reads in the coloring and the folds in the titular man’s clothes.

But what’s this on the cover besides the Grinning Man? TENTACLES! And they look like straight-up octopus appendages! Have we found the thematic glue of Ciencin’s Silent Hill comic books?

The comic begins with some poor fool casting spells in an attempt to protect himself from the Grinning Man, some creep with symbols written all over his torso. 

Adaptation April #3: Silent Hill: Paint It Black: We Don’t Like Ike

Silent Hill: Paint It Black

Writer: Scott Ciencin

Art: Shaun Thomas

Isn’t naming a comic after a Rolling Stones song for a game series that’s already very serious and dark kind of tryhard?

The main character, Ike, looks weirdly similar to Walter Sullivan on the cover by Nick Stakal.

Our comic begins with Ike, a painter, judging the slightly lewd painting he’s just finished. “It’s crap.”

Adaptation April #2: Silent Hill: Among the Damned

Content Warning: Suicide
After the release of Silent Hill: Dying Inside, Scott Ciencin wrote three Silent Hill one-shots. Silent Hill: Three Bloody Tales collects these one-shots. The collection was published in 2005 while Among the Damned was originally published in December 2004.

Silent Hil: Among the Damned

Art: Shaun Thomas

Adaptation April #1: Silent Hill: Dying Inside Issues 4-5

Chapter 4

Lauryn reads a spell from the book in an attempt to sear Christabella out of existence. “Lauryn, you fucking bitch! You’re supposed to look out for me!”

“I am.”
It doesn’t work. Christabella was just playing along to troll Lauryn. Lauryn, Hogg, Clown, and Payne make a break for it. Christabella gives them a head start because Lauryn is family.

Adaptation April #1: Silent Hill: Dying Inside Issues 2-3

Content Warning: Mentions of Abuse

Chapter 2

Issue 2 has a simple but interesting cover. It’s my favorite out of all of the ones that Ashley Wood did for the series.

Adaptation April #1: Silent Hill: Dying Inside Issue #1

Content Warning: Suicide

Prologue

2003. Silent Hill 3 had just come out. Though I never felt that the game reached the heights of its predecessor, it cemented itself as the scariest game I’ve played before or since. While Resident Evil triggers my arachnophobia, SH3 triggered my previously-unknown phobia of deformed, giant, demon women (perhaps Silent Hill is a prequel to Attack on Titan??!).

With SH3‘s fear factor in mind, the premise of an SH comic felt almost forbidden. It was to be published by IDW (Idea + Design Works), fresh off of the unprecedented success of 30 Days of Night (written by Steve Niles with art by Ben Templesmith).