THE MONSTERS ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET
Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone
by Rod Serling and adapted by Mark Kneece and illustrated by Rich Ellis
As dusk falls on suburban Maple Street, children frolic while adults finish their last bits of work outdoors. After a sudden flash, the electricity goes down, then the phone lines, then the automobiles. When some homes mysteriously recover power, panic and fear start to set in—then a young boy declares the flash extraterrestrial, and that aliens have sent human decoys to lead their invasion. Propelled by this statement, Maple Street becomes an all-out violent, paranoia-driven mob scene. Ellis’s evenly boxy panel sizing brilliantly breaks way into a chaotic full-page spread when the crowd reaches its fever pitch. This adaptation is a deliciously creepy reworking of the TV classic and offers a timeless slant on this tale. Equally engaging is The Odyssey of Flight 33 (ISBN: 978-0-8027-9718-6; paper: 978-0-8027-9719-3), illustrated by Robert Grabe, also out this month, with the same wonderful building of suspense that then dissolves into sheer weirdness. Though each story is illustrated by a different artist, they employ a similar style, which provides cohesion within the series. Eerily appealing. (Graphic fiction. 12 & up)