Criminal Macabre by horror writer Steve Niles details the world of Cal McDonald. Similar to characters like John Constantine, McDonald presents himself as a hard-boiled detective dealing with the supernatural. Many other occult detectives in comics make the supernatural mundane by sharing their worlds with superheroes or looking through the eyes of other supernatural people as in the case with Hellboy. This series however shows how disorienting it is to live in or alongside such a world for an otherwise regular human. People either willfully ignore or numb themselves to it.
Criminal Macabre: Cal McDonald Mystery
Our protagonist Cal McDonald seems like the typical PI detective: regularly takes drugs, suffers PTSD, and is not well-liked by the police. However the more anyone spends time with Cal the more they are exposed to the world he inhabits. If you have ever heard the term “ignorance is bliss” that might mean more than you think. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and most of all ghouls are very real things for Cal. Most days with his abilities to see all of them, Cal can’t even afford to think otherwise.
Now let’s look at the other human characters who get exposure to the supernatural. The police are for the most part willfully ignorant of the occult. Because they know ghosts and goblins aren’t supposed to exist, they condition themselves not to believe these things. When the encounters of such beings are with such rigorous fervor it’s easier to let these events be the result of delusion. Such exposures to stress can lead to a number of mental health problems. With Cal McDonald suffering these problems, you would think he would be left alone or have sympathy. Instead he serves as people’s scapegoat to deal with the things they’re not able to handle. This makes Cal less of a service man and more of a sacrificial pawn.
Enthusiasts vs. Lifers
Cal McDonald’s life is not all the better for it. After many of these encounters result in the loss of loved ones, he doesn’t have much to go for. A former cop, Cal’s experiences isolate him from others. Traditional therapy won’t work because Cal knows that this will only lead to denial. With each traumatic experience labeled as a delusion Cal usually goes to pills and alcohol. Not to mention his encounters result in the death of Cal’s family and human friends. The rest of humanity don’t even treat him with decency; instead Cal finds that with his only friend, Mo’lock, a ghoul among an entire community.
But what about the people who use the occult subjects as part of their lifestyles? This includes an ex-girlfriend of Cal’s Sabrina Lynch. She runs a news site that for the most part is a tabloid. Because how else are people going to pay attention to the supernatural? But even then Criminal Macabre goes out of its way to show that people who indulge in these lifestyles are ignorant of the real dangers surrounding their niche. If there’s a love spell in a book at the library, there’s a good chance it summons a succubus. Stuff like this even in real religions get lost in translation and can lead to catastrophe.
The Nature of Urban Occult
The first Criminal Macabre story perfectly fits the setting and premise. When a string of murders leads to monsters with their traditional weaknesses it causes a stir on all sides. In Cal’s experience just a lead bullet can kill them like anyone else. Yet for a mad scientist who makes Victor Frankenstein look like a kindergartner, this is to restore the monsters to their former glory. Spoiler warning ahead.
Monsters other than ghouls actually come from a spread of a retrovirus and bedbugs. Over time new strains emerge and change based on their environment. This created monsters that spread out throughout parts of Europe. Over time however with each new generation, they lose abilities like immunities to conventional weaponry. Because after a while once these monster settle into life’s niches, there’s really nothing special about them. Once you remove the mythology surrounding something, the only real danger comes from ignorance.
Criminal Macabre: No Longer Spooky
With that in mind monsters are surprisingly human, sometimes more than humans themselves. Much like Cal McDonald, while these monsters can represent the supernatural, they can just as easily become the thing to blame for tragedies. Monsters in these cases feel more like social outcasts who make up minorities. Even modern masterpieces like My Favorite Thing Is Monsters shares this sentiment. So the next time you meet a complicated person, don’t write them off as freaks; give them a little sympathy and maybe even empathy if they earn it. There is no need to make a hard life even worse for them.
Thanks for coming to the end and as always remember to look between the panels.