Graphic Content: The Devil That Wears My Face written by David Pepose and illustrated by Alex Cormack

 

God bless Mad Cave Studios! I say this as a horror fan and a fan of horror graphic novels. They might not have the same name recognition as Image Comics or Boom Studios! However, this means that they’re able to establish themselves as the scrappy underdogs of horror comics, and scrap they do. They don’t post inflammatory posts about the major comic companies or challenge editors to street fights, but they garner attention by coming up with the most unusual subjects for their stories, often throwing away traditional genre conventions. Their latest horror series, The Devil That Wears My Face, written by David Pepose and illustrated by Alex Cormack, calls itself “‘Face/Off’ meets ‘The Exorcist’,” and no other elevator-pitch-style tagline sums up a series better. 

In 1740, conflicted priest Father Vieri was summoned to Spain to perform an exorcism. The demon known as Legion has killed lesser priests who have tried to force him out of the Spanish nobleman in which he resides. When Vierti tries to remove the demon, Legion turns the tables on him and ends up switching bodies with Vieri. Now Legion is loose in the Vatican, spreading violence and chaos wherever he goes, and Father Vieri, whose captors believe he is the possessed Spanish nobleman, must stop Legion in his body before he burns the Vatican down. 

This book and Cormack’s gruesomely gory artwork, featuring people not just murdered but exploded, plants it firmly in the adult horror category, along with its use of demonic possession, but Pepose’s story owes a lot to Face/Off, the face-switching action film from the ‘90s, not only in its plot similarities but in its overall tone. This book zooms at an action movie pace as the stalwart heroes try to apprehend Legion and stop the demon’s carnage. And the delightfully evil Legion himself hams it up in a way that would make Castor Troy, Face/Off’s main villain, proud. Movie fans who gravitate between Jerry Bruckenheimer action and James Wan splatter might enjoy this horrific trip to 1700s Italy.

Graphic Content: Dark Spaces: The Hollywood Special written by Jeremy Lambert and illustrated by Claire Roe

 

Anthology series are some of my favorite kinds of horror graphic novels. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in the ‘80s where movies like Creepshow and shows like Tales from the Darkside reigned supreme. It might also have to do with my love of short stories, after all, I’ve always admired the way an author can tell a self-contained story. Dark Spaces, an anthology series created by Scott Snyder, is continuing this horror anthology tradition, even though their stories take place over multiple issues. However, the stories include multiple authors and artists and all tell their own unique stories while falling under the Dark Spaces umbrella. Writer Jeremy Lambert has created a story that somehow combines Old Hollywood with the setting of a Pennsylvania mining town in Dark Spaces: The Hollywood Special. 

The Hollywood Special is a luxury train traveling the country in support of the war effort, carrying fading star  and functional alcoholic Vivian Drake, who is there to boost morale even as her own career and family life falls apart. The train makes a stop in Minersville, Pennsylvania, a mining town that is reeling from a mine collapse. And locals know that the Mishmash Man, a creature that feeds on human misery, will feast on such a tragedy and Vivian discovers that she has plenty of misery to whet the Mishmash Man’s appetite. 

Lambert’s story blends a lot of setting elements that seem an odd fit within the narrative (Old Hollywood and Appalachian folk horror don’t go together like chocolate and peanut butter). However, the pairing works with the glue between them being the theme of dreams like Vivian’s career as a movie star and Minersville resident’s visions of prosperity left to rot in the darkness. Drake is also an intriguing character whose layers slowly unfurl to show why she chooses to hide inside a bottle. What really sells this story, however, is Claire Roe’s artwork, providing some bizarre dreamlike imagery as the narrative shifts from past to present, from real to imaginary. What her art does for the Mishmash Man makes this a book a must for body horror fans, but those who love a creepy atmospheric story will want to ride the Hollywood Special. 

Graphic Content: Dark Spaces: Dungeon by Scott Snyder and Hayden Sherman

 

Horror once focused on the moment where a protagonist or a character met the monster or faced their fear, a single moment of terror that was like an adrenaline shot to the reader’s heart. However, horror has recently looked not just at terrors attacking characters in the past but traumas from the past that have buried deep underneath the characters’ skin, festering throughout their lives. One such person is the investigator at the center of Dark Spaces: Dungeon. Written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Hayden Sherman, this entry into the Dark Spaces anthology series looks at how many people live in dungeons of their own making. 

The story begins with tech entrepreneur Tyler Letts who’s left the fast-paced lifestyle of New York for a quieter life in the country. And while the view outside his window is scenic, it’s the dungeon that’s under his basement that has him calling the FBI (this despite the message painted on the wall that says “Tell No One”). Enter Special Agent Madok, who knows that this is the kind of chamber used by the Keep, an individual whose MO is to keep his prisoners in boxes designed to break bones and wills. Madok is all too aware of the Keeper’s methods, and when Tyler’s son goes missing, Tyler must match wits with the demented dungeon keeper while the clock ticks. 

Snyder’s story reads at first like a straightforward procedural, but as mentioned before, the Keep doesn’t just kill his victims. Sherman’s artwork renders in gruesome detail the Keep’s victims after they’ve spent time in his dungeon. People might be tempted to call this a Saw rip-off, especially considering the elaborate designs of these dungeons, but Snyder’s work is more psychological, delving deep into the trauma is both a help and a hindrance to agent Madok, and the secrets held by both him and the Keep drive the conflict of this work to a shocking twist that just may trap the reader.