THOUGHTS ON H8 SPREE 1&2

“The Half-Life 2 of the /new wave/“ - Gabriel Sinclair

H8 SPREE 1 Started at the end of March then restarted on Thursday April 10th 2025 and finished on Tuesday April 15th 2025

Four stark individuals figure out how to compliment each other in order to formulate a crime fighting team and stop a greater evil

Soy milk-drinking, gimp suit-wearing EICs of satanic news organizations

Adrenochrome shipments and wiggers with rocket launchers

The Federal Reserve becomes a stage for a final confrontation

Those are just some of the things I can mention without getting into extreme territory

Anachronistic alternate timeline concentrated

Spastic and exploding with detail and action

Formatted to be ingested in a lightning quick assault

Title cards, names of cities, buildings, vehicles, and chapters are breathlessly always on the move

Revels in a kind of hyper frenetic information overload

An overstimulation suitable for the attention span of the moment

Character reveals and arcs happen rapidly

Motives and conveniences are often played for blink and you miss it jokes

Characters shout banter back and forth while performing action movie acrobatics

Relaxed script-like format that takes deviations and inspirations from RPGs

Self referential and aware of genre context

Loaded with meme references

Over the top 80s one-liners

Comic book onomatopoeias

Relentlessly funny contemporary internet sense of humor

Like an internet video game complete with bosses, checkpoints, and final fights

Home bases and AI helpers to explain mission objectives

Clearance keys and access codes

Each chapter a stage or mission

Gamer language

To some degree it’s as if the central characters are all just playing an online game together

The leads are satirical and pointed embodiments of political spectrum archetypes

This helps establish great dynamics that bounce off each other

The comradery gets refined as it goes along

Cares a lot about cosmetics and fashion

Graphic deeply stylized character model work that accompanies the text

Earnest commitment to its expressive anime flamboyance

Salaciously horny and wet

Very raw

Very tongue in cheek

Gamified reading in a way that leans into the pleasing ADHD editing for dopamine junkies

The build up to the final boss fight had enough anticipation and reward like we had actually played a game and done the hard work of getting there

Felt like recovering a copy of Final Fantasy from the bottom of a dumpster or as if 4chan made its own Marvel Comics

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H8 SPREE 2 Started on Tuesday April 15th and finished on Wednesday April 30th

The Team is back and this time they have to rescue their AI companion from the clutches of the Undercity

With this comes a cavalcade of new characters and world building details

DMT trips

Upside down entirely gold casinos

Airships with massive laser cannons

Gunfights with our heroes crashing through memes and GIFs in cyberspace

The confidence in voice between these two parts is really impressive

King has sharpened his arsenal of authorial choices and made them feel practically  limitless in their potential

Finds the right balance in letting a phrase speak for itself in helping fill in the environment for the reader

Banter is much more fluid and connective like the characters really know each other now and have spent time with each other outside the confines of the text

Ritalin-momentum and trolling taken to the next level

Commentary more psychotic and nuanced

The character model work for this one doubles down on all the crudity

Enormously accentuated breasts and other body parts adorned with crass piercings and flagrant sharpie marker tattoos

Flexibility to leave the central characters momentarily to spend time with new ones; all introduced with gravitas

Attitudes are never defeated completely

Retains an unshakeable positivity even in moments of uncertain bleakness or death

The stakes never feel like they suffer from the sense of play they always feel present because of the work’s transgressive nature

Title cards will lead into the next sentence like it’s one complete thought

Several fresh examples of it doesn’t just rely on using it in the same fashion

Grand transformations and reveals that took me by surprise

Both parts could be read quickly within a couple sittings

Didnt realize how much I loved the leads until they made their entrances

Very happy with the conclusion to these characters if this is where we leave them but they are fodder for endless scenarios

Pay your taxes people

KING CRINGE and I have a podcast together called Subverted Subversions

Listen to the latest episode here

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THOUGHTS ON NUTCRANKR COMING SOON…