As an avid cinephile I’ve always been a fan of one particular decade, the 1970s. Though many of those movies don’t hold up in various ways, they makes up for it in level of quality in storytelling. The decade gave the world some of cinema’s celluloid classics. One of them being Easy Rider. Though made in 1969, the film defined the 1970s and is the one movie that all biker movies are compared to. Then there’s The Godfather. It’s a movie about Italian Americans made by an Italian American and the gold standard for gangster movies.

As I liked those movies my guilty pleasure were the exploitation movies made by Roger Corman and Jack Hill. The one movie that made fall in love with Pam Grier was The Big Bird Cage. The movie, though exploitative to women, was both entertaining and was part of its own subgenre, women prison movies. In the first issue of Monsterella we’re taken back to that world in the form of a comic. The story takes place on a prison planet holding the universe’s worst monsters and the warden is one of the baddest women in the galaxy.

In the first story, named after the protagonist’s namesake, we meet Montross Rella AKA “Monsterella,” the warden of prison planet Doormu and her comrade Zorgo. She thinks it’s going to be a normal day until a prison break occurs which happens to be a normal occurrence. In “Dungeon Of The Necromancer,” Monsterella and a pair of elves fight off a hoard of zombies. In “The Stork,” a mother feels the unease of harm coming her baby’s way. It’s a doom she’s helpless to stop. In the last story, “The Space Siren Of Sector 13,” one spaceship captain plays out his very own version of Beowulf.

Overall, an entertaining and diverse set of stories that will truly astonish any reader who is lucky enough to get their hands on this comic. The stories by the creative team are eerie, fun, and captivating. The art by the creative team is gorgeous in every iteration. Altogether, a great book that feels like an old issue of Heavy Metal.

Story: Nevin Arnold, John Rathiganthan and Josh Kully
Art: Nevin Arnold, Dan McKinnon, Eugene L., Sean Rinehart, A. Shay Hahn, Josh Kully, Andrew Fryer and Gareth Gaudin
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy