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Welcome To Hoxford
Raymond Delgado isn't well. He's the newest inmate at the Hoxford Correctional Facility and Mental Institution. He has no hope of release, parole, rehabilitation, or decent conversation. On a good day, he'll tell you he's Zeus and only bite your arm off. Literally. On a bad day, you won't have time to scream to the prison guard for help. But Dr. Jessica Ainley, his doctor for five, years wants to help Ray and can't understand why the newly privatized, corporately-run prison won't give her access to her patients. And why are people always transferred into Hoxford, but no records show anyone ever transferring back out?
132 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2009
About the author
Ben Templesmith
406 books292 followersIllustrator and writer of graphic novels / comics.
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Photograph of author by Peow Yeong: October 16 2011 at the 2011 New York Comic Convention in Manhattan.
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Photograph of author by Peow Yeong: October 16 2011 at the 2011 New York Comic Convention in Manhattan.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
February 14, 2021
Welcome To Hoxford #1-4. People that are essentially totally unapologetic murderers, rapists and paedos etc. get sent to Hoxford, the prison of last resort. Interesting idea that could have been executed better; although still a good read. 7 out of 12.
June 4, 2022
The main feature recommending this book is the artwork, dark and stylish, but frequently so abstract as to obscure ones understanding of what is actually happening. The rendering of the werewolves makes them indistiguishable from each other, but then that matches the lack of characterization. The plot is thin, being little more than an excuse to wreak some mildly entertaining violence. There is one female in the whole book, who does little more than provide some sympathy towards the irredeemable male characters, and runs a lot. The main character Ray, is portrayed as being able to rip the werewolves apart with his bare hands, and rip out tongues with his teeth, which is so ridiculous that it turns the whole book into a farce, rather than anything genuinely frightening or suspensenful.
The setup of the story reminds me of the 3rd, much maligned, Alien movie. But where that movie contained complex characters, many of whom were despicable, but still managed to reveal decent qualities, Templeton's characters are so uniformly flat, that even his one 'sympathetic' character fails to generate any sympathy from this reader.
The setup of the story reminds me of the 3rd, much maligned, Alien movie. But where that movie contained complex characters, many of whom were despicable, but still managed to reveal decent qualities, Templeton's characters are so uniformly flat, that even his one 'sympathetic' character fails to generate any sympathy from this reader.
May 11, 2015
3.5
There are no likeable characters in Welcome to Hoxford.
The protagonist Raymond Delgado is as crazy as one can get and the rest of the prisoners who are transferred with him to the Hoxford Correctional Facility and Mental Institution are even worse: a murderer paedophile, a multiple rapist and a murderer, a necrophiliac and so on.
There isn't a single character in the whole story you would feel sorry if they die. Well, maybe the doctor since she is persistent and all.
What is going on inside Hoxford combined with the characters makes this pretty disturbing and occasionally disgusting read. I wonder if the fact that I found humour, albeit of the darkest kind, there should worry me. The scene with the rat is hilarious.
This time I was ready for the font (the occasional black on red).
I liked it.
There are no likeable characters in Welcome to Hoxford.
The protagonist Raymond Delgado is as crazy as one can get and the rest of the prisoners who are transferred with him to the Hoxford Correctional Facility and Mental Institution are even worse: a murderer paedophile, a multiple rapist and a murderer, a necrophiliac and so on.
There isn't a single character in the whole story you would feel sorry if they die. Well, maybe the doctor since she is persistent and all.
What is going on inside Hoxford combined with the characters makes this pretty disturbing and occasionally disgusting read. I wonder if the fact that I found humour, albeit of the darkest kind, there should worry me. The scene with the rat is hilarious.
This time I was ready for the font (the occasional black on red).
I liked it.
April 4, 2009
I've really enjoyed Ben Templesmith's work on Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse and Fell, but felt let down by Welcome to Hoxford. His signature artistic style is again on display, but there isn't much else there to redeem the story. Evil men are sent to a private prison run by evil werewolves who hunt them down. And one of the evil inmates is evil enough to fight back. It's flat-out splatterpunk horror from beginning to end, and the only character I can empathize with is Dr. Ainley, although she barely has any agency in the story. There's rampant misogyny and psychopathy on display from nearly all of the characters, and redemption for no one. Many people die in gory and horrific ways, and no character is developed enough for the reader to care.
At least with Wormwood, we're given humor amongst the horror; nasty things happen in that series as well, but the snark and wry observations do much to temper this, and to give us a window into the characters' personalities. Not so with Hoxford, which is completely humorless, and which takes itself far too seriously.
At least with Wormwood, we're given humor amongst the horror; nasty things happen in that series as well, but the snark and wry observations do much to temper this, and to give us a window into the characters' personalities. Not so with Hoxford, which is completely humorless, and which takes itself far too seriously.
May 26, 2013
The basic idea here is very simple, do not get sent here!
Hoxford is a new generation insane asylum/prison/correction facility...the place of no return, where those who are seen as to dangerous or to insane for normal prisons are shipped of. To never see the sunlight again.
Because normal prisons are to full and to expensive and government just don't want to deal with those people they pass a law giving Hoxford, a private institution, full autonomy to take care of the 'problem'
People who end up there are beyond low, they are pure scum. They are given special treatment at Hoxford. Real special.
Aside form that, they have pedophiles, rapists, regular old murdered, cannibals, psychos of all profiles, necrophiliacs...
Also something much much worse, that has learned to hide in plain sight.
Welcome to Hoxford, you should know, they only want you for your body;)
Hoxford is a new generation insane asylum/prison/correction facility...the place of no return, where those who are seen as to dangerous or to insane for normal prisons are shipped of. To never see the sunlight again.
Because normal prisons are to full and to expensive and government just don't want to deal with those people they pass a law giving Hoxford, a private institution, full autonomy to take care of the 'problem'
People who end up there are beyond low, they are pure scum. They are given special treatment at Hoxford. Real special.
Aside form that, they have pedophiles, rapists, regular old murdered, cannibals, psychos of all profiles, necrophiliacs...
Also something much much worse, that has learned to hide in plain sight.
Welcome to Hoxford, you should know, they only want you for your body;)
June 7, 2013
Deeply dark and disturbing but intriguing in equal measures as we see inside Hoxford, an asylum for the criminally insane with mysterious links to a Russian corporation. Meet the worst of the worst, those marked down as never to be released and at Hoxford you never get out, you may not even survive.
This is Ben Templesmith at his best and you won't find horror depicted any better any where else, these are proper werewolves, not twilight werewolves and with teeth that wouldn't look out of place on a building sized dinosaur.
The film rights were sold to this years ago and that looks to have stalled but check out the 15 minute fan made film starring two of the actors from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, its actually pretty good.
This is Ben Templesmith at his best and you won't find horror depicted any better any where else, these are proper werewolves, not twilight werewolves and with teeth that wouldn't look out of place on a building sized dinosaur.
The film rights were sold to this years ago and that looks to have stalled but check out the 15 minute fan made film starring two of the actors from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, its actually pretty good.
December 22, 2009
I like werewolves. I have to admit they're not as sexy as vampires. It's hard to make something appealing about turning into a blood thirsty killing machine under a full moon. Drinking blood and luring young virgins into depravity is practically heroic in comparison.
Ben Templesmith is the mind behind Wormwood. It is a twisted and dark place. Somewhat like 30 Days of Night (of which Templesmith was the artist), it puts werewolves in a confined space and lets them loose. It also pairs them with the worst that humanity has to offer. If Templesmith were a better writer it might have been a story of which monsters to call the heroes; but he's not so it's mostly about gore and violence. Lots of both.
I didn't really like the characterisation of the werewolves in Hoxford. In my opinion he chose to ignore what can lead to interest in werewolves: pack mentality, the curse and the dichotomy between the human and the animal. Instead they were a pack of mindless killers of the same caliber as the serial murders and the rapists that populated Hoxford. I was hoping for more.
Ben Templesmith is the mind behind Wormwood. It is a twisted and dark place. Somewhat like 30 Days of Night (of which Templesmith was the artist), it puts werewolves in a confined space and lets them loose. It also pairs them with the worst that humanity has to offer. If Templesmith were a better writer it might have been a story of which monsters to call the heroes; but he's not so it's mostly about gore and violence. Lots of both.
I didn't really like the characterisation of the werewolves in Hoxford. In my opinion he chose to ignore what can lead to interest in werewolves: pack mentality, the curse and the dichotomy between the human and the animal. Instead they were a pack of mindless killers of the same caliber as the serial murders and the rapists that populated Hoxford. I was hoping for more.
September 4, 2009
okay...just so you know...by now if you haven't read my reviews, i freakin' adore ben templesmith's work. i think his art is fabulous and his story-telling just keeps getting better. this time he tackles the werewolf mythos with his telling of "welcome to hoxford." ray is a mental case with almost every problems you can think of, manic, scitzo, insane, deadly...and that's just scratching the surface. he is placed in a maximum security prison with other lost causes and the plot thickens as the guards and warden turn into beasts hungry for the hunt. what follows is gory and entertaining in classic templesmith fashion. enjoy!
February 25, 2009
pick it up and you don't want to put it down, just to see what twisted image is in that next panel. Templesmith delivers a non-stop horror story that takes the wuss out of wherewolves much like 30 Days of Night made vampires scary again. Welcome to Hoxford takes the worst of OZ and runs it through Templesmith psychie to deliver a horror story worth reading again. Templesmith's signature art style lends perfectly to the chaos and madness that is delivered in 107 pages.
March 21, 2009
While I love Templesmith's style and the overall conceit of this book, there were unfortunately too many visual storytelling problems to warrant a higher rating. I was unable to tell which character was which, whether they were the supporting cast of prisoners or the various werewolves. The character models on either side were very similar and the background environments were too nebulous to get any real sense of place during action sequences. Pacing also suffered in the final chapter.
January 6, 2009
Ben Templesmith in great in this. He is doing all the writing, drawing, and covers. And it is wonderful. This is bone-chilling horror done in a very good way. Highly recommended! Mature audiences.
February 21, 2009
A good, straightforward werewolf story with some fresh trappings and twists. Definitely recommended for fans of 30 Days of Night, and anyone who wants to see a necrophiliac sodomize a dead werewolf.
April 9, 2009
loved this templesmith comic. werewolves? check. crazy cannibals? check. not for those who can't watch a dead werewolf rape? check.
April 19, 2009
Two words: Werewolf necrophilia. If you're up for that you'll definitely enjoy this book. As always, beautiful illustrations and words provided by Ben Templesmith (le sigh).
August 14, 2023
Very stylish, absurdly grim both in presentation and...whatever the hell is happening in Hoxford. Let's be real, any semblance of story here is just an excuse for more visuals, which is fine, because it shines.
October 8, 2019
I just love Templesmith's art style. This was a dark horror graphic, perfect for a quick read right before Halloween.
August 8, 2022
A bit too violent and the artwork a bit too wild for me, but interesting enough for my first Templesmith comic.
September 13, 2011
I adore Ben Templesmith. He was the best thing about 30 Days of Night (the writing just couldn't live up to his art). Welcome to Hoxford is a stand-alone both written and illustrated by Mr. Templesmith and it is awesome. And very disturbing. My husband got about 10 or pages in and went, "Nope. Not reading this. Don't want the nightmares." I loved it!
Who doesn't love a comic set in an asylum for the criminally insane run by a mysterious Russian corporation? I don't want to say very much because I don't want to include any spoilers, but this book will scare your pants off. Templesmith's art is gorgeous, his writing is wonderful, and he manages two different things at once: the out of the corner of your eye kind of suspense, and the aftermath when that thing you thought you saw out of the corner of your eye appears and rocks your world.
Horror comics and horror books and horror movies are all three things that are very difficult to do well. There are so many cliches and so often things tend to devolve into something resembling torture porn. Mr. Templesmith knows from horror - he can write it, he can illustrate it, and he's in my pantheon - right up there with Messrs. Moore, Gaiman, and Morrison. Can't wait to start Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse (an ongoing series)!
Who doesn't love a comic set in an asylum for the criminally insane run by a mysterious Russian corporation? I don't want to say very much because I don't want to include any spoilers, but this book will scare your pants off. Templesmith's art is gorgeous, his writing is wonderful, and he manages two different things at once: the out of the corner of your eye kind of suspense, and the aftermath when that thing you thought you saw out of the corner of your eye appears and rocks your world.
Horror comics and horror books and horror movies are all three things that are very difficult to do well. There are so many cliches and so often things tend to devolve into something resembling torture porn. Mr. Templesmith knows from horror - he can write it, he can illustrate it, and he's in my pantheon - right up there with Messrs. Moore, Gaiman, and Morrison. Can't wait to start Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse (an ongoing series)!
July 29, 2011
Ben Templesmith's artwork is dark, eerie, and fantastic. He also tells a good horror story, and Welcome to Hoxford is his contribution to the werewolf genre. In the foreword, he says that werewolves just don't interest him, and I can see why. Much like vampires, they've been boiled down to something that's commercial and mainstream. But thankfully, Templesmith wrote this story, and he makes his werewolves into truly gruesome and savage monsters.
Welcome to Hoxford is also a prison story. The main characters are degenerate psychopaths that make the cast of Con Air look like pre-schoolers. Among them is Ray Delgado, a brutal inmate who likes to bite people and has a whole smorgasbord of mental illnesses. He's half psychotic white trash, half classical god. Hannibal Lecter meets Hercules. Ray's so crazy that it's kind of scary, but in a really cool way. He's actually not surprised when werewolves start ripping people to shreds.
And Templesmith's art brings the wolves to life in gruesome glory. They are drawn like giant horse-demons, with mouths that swallow humans whole. They rip and rend and send plenty of gore flying, just as a werewolf story should be.
April 16, 2012
"Rehabilitation" is not a big buzzword at the Hoxford institution. Hoxford is more of a storage facility, a privately contracted warehouse where the criminal justice system can conveniently ship and forget about its "special needs" inmates: pedophiles, rapists, necrophiliacs, cannibals. And the latest addition, Raymond Delgado, a psycho killer who has delusions of godlike grandeur and this compulsion to bite. Only problem is the guards are likely to bite back. I don't want to give any surprises away about the staff of Hoxford, so I'll just say it'll be a full moon in a couple days. Hacks indeed. Here's a graphic novel absolutely crying out to be made into a summer movie. Actually, I think it's already been a movie, only David Fincher used aliens instead of werewolves. "Welcome to Hoxford" isn't the most sophisticated or well-thought-out comic ever written, but the main reason to buy a Ben Templesmith book is page after glossy page of his gloriously gory artwork. Among the extras in the book is a cover gallery that gives Templesmith several two-page spreads on which to show off. No one can splatter crimson across a canvas like Templesmith can.
July 9, 2016
Although Ben Templesmith might be talented in his art, he really lacks in his storytelling. All the characters right from the get go are super evil and therefore super unlikable. Templesmith also rushes to the point to almost desperately show that they are evil criminals without any sort of gradual introduction so we could judge for ourselves what this character is like. This makes them all fairly 2 dimensional characters.
A fairly short and simple story though which has a great idea but didn't seem to be developed or thought through very much.
But in the other hand this book is very visually appealing and beautifully painted and drawn( if you're into that fucked up short of stuff). Ben Templesmith has his very unique signature style mainly focusing on his figures and having intense detail on the face and then having this sickening colour palette to paint with. This comic is partially with reading just for the images really. You could literally just skip the writing and just focus on those horrifying paintings.
A fairly short and simple story though which has a great idea but didn't seem to be developed or thought through very much.
But in the other hand this book is very visually appealing and beautifully painted and drawn( if you're into that fucked up short of stuff). Ben Templesmith has his very unique signature style mainly focusing on his figures and having intense detail on the face and then having this sickening colour palette to paint with. This comic is partially with reading just for the images really. You could literally just skip the writing and just focus on those horrifying paintings.
May 14, 2009
Full disclosure: between Templesmith's art and the mythology in question, I never really had a hope of not enjoying the hell out of this.
Perhaps best known for 30 Days of Night, I prefer the stuff he’s written himself and this is no exception. As I often harp, if you’re going to tackle an archetypal beastie or legend you have to bring something, no matter how small, to the table besides your own characters and setting. Jordan brought a really neat twist to his ghost in Shade, and here Templesmith brings a cool aesthetic to the design of his creatures. While in one instance an author is tweaking with the mechanics of an archetype and in the other the artist/writer is simply altering the appearance, in both cases the reader feels rewarded by the creativity enlivening the legend. Plus Templesmith’s art allowed me to pretend Vin Diesel was voicing the protagonist, which made me happy.
Perhaps best known for 30 Days of Night, I prefer the stuff he’s written himself and this is no exception. As I often harp, if you’re going to tackle an archetypal beastie or legend you have to bring something, no matter how small, to the table besides your own characters and setting. Jordan brought a really neat twist to his ghost in Shade, and here Templesmith brings a cool aesthetic to the design of his creatures. While in one instance an author is tweaking with the mechanics of an archetype and in the other the artist/writer is simply altering the appearance, in both cases the reader feels rewarded by the creativity enlivening the legend. Plus Templesmith’s art allowed me to pretend Vin Diesel was voicing the protagonist, which made me happy.
April 29, 2009
I liked this book mostly because i'm glad someone did such an awesome version of werewolves. Mr. Templesmiths art continues to be amazing, but the story seemed a little short to me. Maybe not enough charachter development, i just didn't want it to end, i have no problem with it ending the way it did, but i just felt like it was missing something. However i'm glad i bought it. I think its very clear though that he is still a vampire person, maybe he won't abandon the wolves though i love his design and take on the behaviors of the pack... I need a really good werewolf comic/book anything.
October 30, 2015
I really did want to like this. The artwork is eye-catching though not to my taste but as for plot, there isn't much. I've always loved werewolves and feel they have as much potential as vampires to be compelling characters in fiction but Templesmith doesn't go beyond showing a violent nature. As for the other characters none proved likable, even Dr. Ainley who seemed to be nothing more than window dressing.
April 6, 2012
While I love Templesmith's artwork/style, the story seemed a bit lacking. The relationship between the main inmate character and his psychiatrist was interesting though. Perhaps because he only had a few issues to work with Templesmith couldn't really flesh out the characters/story/background very much without losing the ability to get to the ending he wanted (which was interesting/satisfying).
November 20, 2013
It’s hard to have a story full of characters the reader isn’t supposed to like, or in this case even despise, but they work well enough to fulfill what the plot requires of them. It’s intriguing enough to keep you reading, but Morrison and McKean’s Arkham Asylum has a similar setting and art style, but a better product. Also it has Batman, which is sort of an unfair advantage.
April 29, 2016
The dialogue between characters was a little bit of "overshare" to feel natural, but the story itself was great. Gruesome, dark, almost funny, but very cool- a fresh take on werewolves in a way that one might even say makes a statement on the U.S. prison system and our culture's preference to "wash our hands" of the deeply disturbed criminal rather than rehabilitate. Fun read.
October 27, 2010
A wonderful new werewolf story. Great to see the wolfies making their mark again. Templesmith's handling of the subject matter (prison, insanity, murder, werewolves) was refeshing and honest. A real treat that kept you on your toes just waiting to see what would happen next.
October 1, 2011
Pretty violent and short. A darn decent werewolf read. I just wish it had gone a little longer. The underlying premise doesn't make too much sense. Even extremely violent, death row people would have lawyers, relatives. It's hard to imagine this working for too long.
January 27, 2014
There are no words. Dark? Sick? Depraved? Terrifying? All understatements. I loved this--perfectly executed down to the lettering of the dialogue. And the illustrations were just perfect for the subject matter...you don't see art like that everyday. Read this.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews