Racks and Stacks - Child's Play 2 from Innovation

In the Racks and Stacks series, Cody discusses the comic books he has been reading.

This time: a comic book adaptation of Child's Play 2.

The comic book company Innovation Publishing launched in 1988 and became number four in market share, below Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Dark Horse Comics. As you would expect, the company had a large number of original titles – but they didn’t seem to really catch on. Most of them didn’t last long at all and I rarely, if ever, see them referenced. What Innovation was best known for was their licensed titles, and even most of them were surprisingly short-lived.

The company only existed for six years, going defunct in 1994 (and, according to Wikipedia, leaving “substantial debts to creators, printers, and investors” when it did), but during that time it released comic books based on several Anne Rice novels, the Dark Shadows TV series, Lost in Space, Mack Bolan: The Executioner, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Quantum Leap, Psycho, and even Bozo the Clown. Also in the mix was the Child’s Play slasher movie franchise, starting with a three-issue adaptation of the 1990 sequel Child’s Play 2.

Like Innovation, Child’s Play launched in 1988. Directed by Tom Holland from a screenplay he crafted from an original script by Don Mancini (with John Lafia also contributing rewrites), the film told us about Chicago-based serial killer Charles Lee Ray, a.k.a. the Lakeshore Strangler. Chased into a toy store, mortally wounded, Ray used a voodoo chant to pass his soul into the body of a Good Guy doll. That doll ended up in the possession of a little boy named Andy Barclay – and then Ray, speaking through the doll and calling himself Chucky, set out to possess Andy. That didn’t go well for him. He was burnt to a crisp and blown to pieces.

Directed by Lafia from a screenplay by Mancini, Child’s Play 2 picks up immediately after the events of its predecessor. With his mother institutionalized for backing up his claims that the Chucky doll was alive, Andy is placed in foster care… but the Good Guy company has acquired the remains of Chucky and put him back together in an effort to study what, if anything, went wrong with that particular doll. As soon as he has been reassembled, Chucky comes back to life – and sets out to complete his mission of possessing Andy, killing anyone who gets in his way.

Andy Mangels landed the job of turning Mancini’s script into a three-issue comic series, and he was provided with a good amount of material to aid in this endeavor. Not only did he get a copy of the script, but he was also given storyboards, production notes, film stills, and even got to watch a work-in-progress cut of the movie. The script was 117 pages, with 207 scenes. Mangels had to break that down into 72 pages – and did a good job of it. While things were condensed and scenes from the movie didn’t make it into the comic, I didn’t really miss anything – and the comic even kept a scene that was cut from the movie! It’s a suspense scene that involves Andy’s teen foster sister Kyle, who hangs out in the living room one night – painting her toenails and listening to music – and doesn’t realize that she’s sharing the room with Chucky, the killer doll.

If you’ve seen the Child’s Play / Chucky movies or the TV series, you know that Chucky is quite the potty-mouth. The comic does feature some vulgarity, but some of his lines had to be toned down. You’ll see pissant, asshole, or bitch in word balloons, but F-bombs are censored.

If you’re a Chucky fan, the Child’s Play 2 comic book adaptation is a cool collectible to check out. The story is covered well and Darick Robertson did nice work with the art. Chucky looks really funny at times, and that just adds to the entertainment.

Note: Marvel Comics will not be covered in Racks and Stacks articles, as they have their own article series.