MURDER BY MAIL #1 - Review

When I was growing up there were these books called ‘Choose Your Own Adventures’, I absolutely loved them, gobbled them up. It was a simple premise: At certain points, during whatever story you were reading, you would get to a juncture where you were given a choice. Usually the question would center around the main character and be directional or action based, go this way or that way or do this or do that. Depending on what you chose to do it would give you a page number and you would flip ahead, or sometimes back, to that page number to continue the story. This would eventually take you to the ending which was different every time depending on what choices you made. This was one of those old school books.

 

Apparently a new publisher called ‘Chooseco’ are currently releasing these types of books. I hope they’re popular with kids. Thinking back on it now, it was quite an existential experience to have and learn as a kid even if you didn’t think you were learning anything. It basically taught you that different choices have different outcomes and create different circumstances that will ultimately lead you to different endings. One would think this concept would work wonderfully in today’s entertainment environment. I know there was the whole Black Mirror: Bandersnatch thing which was, mnyeh, nothing great. It was actually a maddening experience that I didn’t necessarily enjoy. I remember the ending being blah and that it was hard to actually get to a good ending based on what choices you made.

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Netflix also just released ‘Choose Love’ a week ago, a rom-com movie where you make decisions along the way for the lead cutesy girl as to who she should end up with. I haven’t seen it yet but it looks, well, yeah looks goofy. It’s not getting good reviews at all. There’s a scene in the trailer where she comes upon an old flame and they’re sitting at a bench and you’re given an option to either A. Kiss him or B. Not kiss him. Clearly they’re not trying to be realistic other options should pop up like:

 

C. Start scrolling your Insta and answer DMs to appear disinterested while also being honest about your screen addiction

 

D. Go to kiss him then punch him in the face for trying to cause drama with your man. Then call him a scoundrel or racist, or both.

 

E. Tell him that he should meet up with your bestie who’s got an amazing personality. When he asks what she looks like you can: 

 

1. Lie and say she’s hot

2. Say she’s body positive

3. Kiss him, make a noise and say ‘Wrong Answer Nazi!’, then leave.

 

F. Start making sounds like Beaker does from the Muppets and bounce away from him.

 

 

 

I mean c’mon! Give us some realistic choices here! If they were smart they would make a Mystery or Adventure ‘Choose your own Adventure’, those pair very well with the genre. Imagine enjoying a Goonies type movie and making choices for each and every pivotal moment. I suppose that’s too obvious for the suits.

 

Anyway, I thought that this comic was going to be some sort of choose your own adventure comic. It claimed that it was a “groundbreaking new series offers readers a unique and immersive storytelling experience”. Yeah, not so much. It was aight, immersive and interactive? Not even close. Okay, so if immersive and interactive is like ‘Here put on this fat red tomato body suit on and these VR goggles. Oh by the way, actors are going be making attempts to thwack at your knees and ankles for an hour straight’ that is immersive and interactive. This is like sitting down to a desk and looking and reading some stuff about a murder. Groundbreaking? Dude.

 

Could we expect anything more from Source Point Press? This may be the first book I’ve ever bought by this publisher. If you go to their website, seems like all they do is print horror, pulp or wackadoodly doo comics, not really my steelo. As I keep saying, I’m flailing around as I pull books these days. I’m just looking for something, anything, to blow me away. Doesn’t matter where it comes from, just, like, do some cool shit, ya know?

 

I think this had a lot of potential but it just turned into a run of the mill murder type thing. The writing was kind of pedestrian, it almost felt like a YA book; like some cheesy Nancy Drew type ish. I will say that the layouts and way that it was all presented was very well done even if the text and story line wasn’t so riveting. There were phone call transcripts, interviews, pictures, a map etc. Whoever was in charge of the layouts and design they did a fantastic job. They made a big point at the beginning of the book to tell you as the reader to only look at pages that had ‘Action’ at the top in green before doing anything else because it would ruin the ending. The problem with it was that all of the pages were action pages until the very end so it didn’t matter whether you listened to them or not. If you read the book linearly, and there’d be no reason not to otherwise, you’d end up at the end where it tells you to stop and solve the mystery before you turn the page for the reveal.’

 

Ho hum.

 

They could have done waaaay more with this comic. They could have included links or set up a website with videos such as surveillance/interview footage. They could have linked this to fake social media accounts or had you use some sort of Google Earth facsimile to zero in on where this took place. There’s just so many ways to get creative about an interactive mystery these days, that would have been groundbreaking. How the fuck is it groundbreaking to include all these images and transcripts and ask us to solve the murder mystery? I can’t imagine anyone putting this book down and calling or texting someone ‘Dude I just read this ground-fucking-breaking mystery!’. Look, I get it, when you’re one of the smaller publishing guys you gotta hype your stuff up a bit more. OR, hear me out, or you could actually make it groundbreaking and truly interactive.

 

Apparently you can sign up for text messages where they send you hints and clues about the upcoming mysteries; that’s kinda cool. What they’re doing is they’re making each subsequent issue another murder mystery to solve that connects to every issue as part of a horror-verse. That’s all well and good but first of all, I don’t feel like I just roleplayed a detective I just read about one doing what they do. Secondly, no matter what I though the answer was to the mystery it wasn’t going to change anything once I turned to the reveal. Like, I dunno, put some choose your own adventure type jammy into the mix. Third, the reveal felt really far fetched. Like, I could see how this could be the answer to the mystery but in no way, after going back over everything, was it clear that the murderer was who they said it was.

 

Look, this was really great idea but as with everything it all comes down to the execution. Maybe Image can pick up the mantle of doing an immersive book and knock one out of the park. There’s a lot of imaginative intersections you can have with a comic book, the internet, social media and the real world. It’s just gonna take a real bad ass to make those connections. The dude behind this? Not really a bad ass.

 

I’ve got a new Choose Your Own Adventure story. It’s called ‘The Mystery of the Local Comic Book Shop’. Here’s an excerpt:

 

After walking your little doggie around the block and avoiding the tempting but over priced coffee shop that drains your wallet on the regular you waltz into your favorite local comic book shop. You unhook your doggie’s leash so she can happily roam and sniff the declining book sales as you peruse the racks for that gem of a story that your life has been missing. As you look at the comics for sale you can either:

 

A.  Grab all the Marvisney books, place them all over the floor and hope your doggie pees all over them even though she never pees inside and emptied the tank already.

 

B.    Snatch all the Bat Books from the racks, hold them up to sky and wail ‘Why Must Thou Suck So Bad!!!’

 

C.     Blindly grab all the Image Books off the rack and assume that one or more of them will provide you a satisfactory comic experience.

 

D.    Squint your eyes at all the publishers not named DC, Marvisney and Image and growl ‘What the fuck are these garbage pages?’

 

E.     All of the Above.

 

Once you complete your task you exit the comic book store. This time you fail to avoid the over priced coffee shop and proceed to spend $40 on a bag of organic coffee beans, a vegan donut and a cinnamon bun the size of your head.

 

 

Rating: 5.7

Verdict: Drop