Graphic Content: Dark Ride Vol. 2 and 3 by Joshua Williamson, Andrei Bresses, and Adriano Lucas

One of the many ways I procrastinate when I should be writing is I watch roller coaster videos on Youtube. I have resorted to living vicariously through these videos because it takes a while to travel to the locations of these roller coasters and I don’t want to pay $20 for a corn dog. Luckily, writer Joshua Williamson and artists Andrei Bressen and Adriano Lucas have pooled their talents to create the graphic novel series Dark Ride, which combines two of my favorite things: amusement parks and horror. I reviewed Volume 1 of this series for the website No Flying, No Tights, and Volumes 2 and 3 offer a fitting end to this tale of Faustian bargains and trying/failing to live up to your parents’ expectations. 

Volume 1 of this story introduces readers to Devil Land, the Scariest Place on Earth, a horror-themed theme park designed by eccentric genius Arthur Dante. As heirs to his legacy, Arthur’s children Samhein (Sam), the dutiful son, and Halloween, the goth girl influencer, constantly try to show their father they are worthy to run the park, but they soon discover that there is something truly terrifying that helped Arthur build Devil Land. It turns out the streets of Devil Land are paved with human souls, and Sam and Halloween’s souls may be up for grabs. 

The series is enjoyable with Bressen and Lucas’s artwork helping writer Williamson fully realize the look for this park, especially the diabolical mascot that performs its own brand of vile mischief. Williamson, though, develops his characters to tell a compelling story, allowing Sam, an absentee father, becoming the book’s moral center as Halloween, often seen as shallow by her family, becoming a wild card that could save the day or send them all to Hell. For those horror fans that love the visual aesthetic as much as the spooky storytelling, all three volumes of Dark Ride are worth the price of admission, especially if you check it out at your local library. 

 

Graphic Content: Killadelphia Deluxe Edition Book 2 by Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander

There are some that say horror shouldn’t deal with anything political. My initial response to such a statement is to ask the person making said statement how much actual horror they’ve seen in the last 50 or so years. Horror, indeed a great deal of speculative fiction, hits not only the universal truths of human existence but provides a mirror, no matter how cracked, into our currently broken times. Some may pejoratively call such horror “woke,” but such stories also bring a bright light to some very dark and harmful social issues. Rodney Barnes’s book Killadelphia is an excellent example of this, using the idea of vampires as the Founding Fathers as an example of our current broken system. I had already reviewed the first deluxe edition of this series, but Killadelphia Deluxe Edition Book 2, like any good sequel, raises the stakes for all the characters involved. 

The book opens with Philadephia as a fallen city. Abigail Adams, wife of former president John Adams, and her vampires are not roaming the streets at night to slaughter any innocent humans in their way while humans fighting for survival are turning on each other in the bright light of day. Undead detective James Sangster, Sr., along with his son, find help in the form of the enigmatic vampire Seesaw, a pack of werewolves who know a thing or two about war, and a trickster god, but the vampire army have boosted their numbers with the addition of founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. 

With the stellar depictions of vampiric carnage rendered by artist Jason Shawn Alexander, the meat of the story is filled in by writer Barnes. Barnes does quite a bit of narrative lifting in this volume, having to handle so many new characters, from werewolves to new vampires. In the hands of an inexperienced writer, all the new characters could have flitted past the readers without leaving any impression, but Barnes balances them all, letting them all develop organically and contribute to the overall story in their own ways. Along with character development, Barnes uses the vampire metaphor to shine a light on the dark underbelly of America and the promises it has left unfulfilled with monologues by a man who helped build it. 

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.  

Graphic Content: Dark Spaces: Good Deeds by Che Grayson and Kelsey Ramsey

 

Fans of horror and comics, or horror comics, might know the name Scott Snyder. Superhero fans might have heard of him because of his seminal work on Batman series like “Death of the Family” and “Dark Nights: Metal.” Horror fans might remember him from such original works as American Vampire and Wytches. He’s managed to parlay that name recognition into an anthology series called Dark Spaces, published by IDW comics. Though he has contributed his own writing to this series, Dark Spaces: Good Deeds is a collaboration from two female creators, with writing done by Che Grayson and illustrations done by Kelsey Ramsey. 

This particular story in the series is a female-centric one with two female protagonists. The first is teenager Cheyenne Rite, who is trying to adjust to her new home in small-town St. Augustine, Florida. The other is Jean McKnight, who is looking to put her journalism career back on track with a piece about St. Augustine’s 450th anniversary celebration. Both women join forces to try and uncover an evil act that goes back centuries that could destroy the town and everyone in it. 

The premise could have had dueling protagonists, with each of them fighting for recognition in their own story, but Grayson keeps them balanced enough so that neither feels like a shallow character (the third act twist also helps keep each protagonist distinct). Ramsey contributes with artwork that doesn’t skimp on the horror, with images that could be pulled straight from a Creepshow comic, which is a complement. Grayson and Ramsey’s collaboration has created a spooky story that looks ready to topple with all the elements going on but still delivers a solid supernatural tale of karma come due. 

Graphic Content: Shook: A Black Horror Anthology by Bradley Golden, John Jennings, and Marcus Roberts

 

When people think of graphic novels, they tend to think of them as . . . well, novels, or at least one overall story. But there are other creators who are using the comic book format to tell smaller stories. Not only does this demonstrate experimentation with the form but it also introduces readers to comic creators they might never have discovered otherwise. There are many different creators that aren’t as famous as, for example, Jim Lee or Geoff Johns who are telling their own stories, including black creators utilizing the monsters within the horror genre to reveal their own unique perspectives on what is scary. The book Shook: A Black Horror Anthology features a collection of graphic novel horror stories from today’s most-well known black comic artists and authors.  

The stories in this anthology reflect many different tropes and subgenres residing under horror’s umbrella, and readers who want to explore black stories, and the subsequent hardships within them, will savor these sinister tales. Fans of dystopian fiction will like Tasty! Itchy! by Bradley Golden (“Mississippi Zombies”), but they might want to stay away if they are terrified of bugs. Writer John Jennings (“Box of Bones”) gives readers“The Breaks,” a 90’s spin that could have been part of “Tales from the Hood.” Rodney Barnes, creator of “Killadelphia,” offers up a ghostly serving of Southern Gothic justice in his story “The Last March.” 

The artwork presented within this anthology is as varied as its stories. For “The Breaks,” artist Charlie Goubile evokes the most talented graffiti artist in how he draws the characters. Allesio Nocerino, the artist for “Evil Lives,” gives the story the feel of an EC comic book with his choices of color and composition. Artist Roberto Castro goes black and white but fills his artwork full of superhero-looking action sequences in “Ezra the Hunter.” Even if readers find some stories in this anthology lacking, there are others that could put a delicious shiver of fear in their spine. 

Graphic Content: Haunt You to the End by Ryan Cady and Andrea Mutti

 

When people say that the world is on fire, they might mean that figuratively or literally. Just checking the news is enough to fuel a truckload of anxieties, but in particular the climate is worrisome; the news is filled with temperature records being broken and violent storms leaving devastation in their wake. Horror stories are often at their best when they’re addressing these kinds of anxieties. Writer Ryan Cady incorporates climate catastrophe with the classic ghost story in the book Haunt You to the End.

The story is set in the near future (but it still seems like a pretty close future). As the climate spirals out of control, where even the air can be toxic. An unemployed journalist, a compassionate doctor, a TV demonologist, join an eccentric billionaire and his small contingent of military contractors on an expedition to Isla Lodo, supposedly “the most haunted place on Earth,” all to prove the existence of life after death and to give people hope that there is something beyond this life (whether that’s actual hope is debatable). As a superstorm threatening to wipe Isla Lodo off the map approaches, this team discovers that there is something more dangerous than the air and the storm that’s coming. It’s something that wants their very souls.

The horrors that Cady explores seem quite relevant to today, even as the book it set nearly a century into the future, and the characters he populates this world with are the ones you’d expect to find in a by-the-numbers ghost story, from the billionaire who has relatively good but misguided intentions to the disillusioned cynic who is forced to become a believer. There’s even a corporate big bad that not only is keeping what’s happening on Isla Lodo quiet, but they are also responsible for the way the world is. To keep this story grounded, Artist Andrea Mutti doesn’t draw things like flying cars and hoverboards, keeping the technology very much down-to-earth, perhaps to show just how close this environmentally-ravaged world is to ours. However, readers should expect the typical ghastly ghostly images of bodies in various states of injury and reanimation. As for the story itself, it doesn’t break new ground, but its environmental message does evoke some very real-world terrors.

Graphic Content: Harrower by Justin Jordan and Brahm Revel

Slashers are back in a big way, and killers wielding life-ending weapons are in. Whether it’s Stephen Graham Jones reinventing the genre in his Indian Lake trilogy or streaming service Shudder pumping out contemporary slasher along with their library of slasher classics geared for gorehounds, maniacs are making a bloody splash. Nowhere and no one is safe, not even graphic novels. One of the latest to capitalize on the slasher renaissance, and seemingly the closest to a traditional slasher, is Harrower, a book of small town savagery written by Justin Jordan and drawn by Brahm Revel.

The small town that is to be the center of carnage is Barlowe, New York. Jessa Brink, along with her friends, are ready to cut loose this Halloween night despite warnings from their parents and the local legend about the Harrower. The Harrower is Barlowe’s resident boogeyman. For generations, the Harrower has stalked the shadowy streets of Barlowe, looking for young men and women who stray from the path of puritanical purity. Unfortunately, Jessa and her friends find themselves in the Harrower’s bloody, destructive path.

Fans of slasher movies will find a lot that’s familiar in this book, from the secondary characters who are only there to add to the body count to the killer and his distinct weapon (in this case, a medieval battle axe swung with deadly precision). Jordan’s story doesn’t necessarily break new ground, but there is also comfort in the familiar. Fans might even feel nostalgic watching the Harrower use brutal methods to enforce a moral code, remembering how Jason Voorhees killed teens who have sex and/or do drugs on his campground. The twist at the end even references how slashers are often portrayed as purity enforcers. Along with Revel’s depictions of carnage, Harrower is a feel-good kind of slasher for fans who long ago wore out their VHS copies of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, along with those lucky enough to have just discovered the slasher genre.

Graphic Content: Dead Kingdom, Vol. 1 by Etienne Deprentigny

 

A little-known fact about me (at least, I’m still assuming it’s little known) is that I love to play Dungeons & Dragons. Particularly, I love exploring a dark dungeon, gathering up treasure and killing scores of enemies. Also, I love to read stories about said dungeons, treasure, and monsters, not necessarily in that order. As a lover of horror, I am particularly overjoyed when fantasy and horror overlap, where the swords sever lots of limbs and the sorcery is typically used to raise and/or control the dead. This is basically the setup of Etienne Derepentigny’s Dead Kingdom, Vol. 1, which takes the Walking Dead formula and sets it during medieval times.

The story is set in a land that has been torn apart by war. Kain is a peacekeeper and former soldier who has grown tired of battle, but he must once again take up his sword as the land faces a plague of the dead rising and attacking the living. As the bodies fall only to rise again, Kain must make his way across the land, reunite with his wife, and hopefully not die and become part of the undead army.

This world drawn by Derepentigny is not a shimmering fantasy world of shimmering castles and flying dragons that could easily end the zombie scourge with a few fiery blasts. Derepentigny’s world is dingy, full of drab stone walls and muddied, bloody soldiers. When the dead are dispatched, after figuring out that the head is indeed vulnerable, the kills with ax and arrow become a highlight of his book, especially for fans of the Walking Dead. Those fans will definitely see a Rick Grimes template in Kain. Derepentigny, who also writes the book, establishes Kain as a soldier reluctant to fight but is, despite his best efforts, quite good at it. Add in a quest for his wife and this story becomes ideal for fans of both Walking Dead and Dungeons and Dragons, those who wouldn’t mind roving the apocalyptic wastelands while wielding a sword. 

Graphic Content: Love Everlasting Volume 2 written by Tom King and illustrated by Elsa Charettier

 

People might be familiar with the book Love Everlasting, Vol. 1, written by Tom King and illustrated by Elsa Charretier (I also hope that it’s because you read the review I did for volume 1). It focuses on Joan Peterson, a woman who finds herself living out the plotlines of several romantic stories, being everything from a maid pining for her employer to a secretary who desires her best friend’s fiancée. In all these scenarios, once she supposedly finds love, she is whisked away Quantum-Leap-style to a new romance plot, and if she doesn’t fall in line and live out the story she’s in, a mysterious cowboy shows up to kill her and she respawns into a different romance plot. I was unsure how Volume 2 of Love Everlasting could add anything new to the story. It doesn’t add any details to Joan’s predicament, but it does show a wrinkle to the rules of her existence.

The scenario of Joan needing to find love to escape must still play out for her in Volume 2, even if finding that love takes a while. (Here’s where I should probably put a SPOILER ALERT for those who want to read the story and be totally surprised). In 1963, party girl Joan finds herself in a relationship with square-jawed, strait-laced Don, but Joan actually goes through an entire life with Don, from getting married and having kids to becoming a grandmother and spending her old age alone. Though Charretier’s artwork still pays homage to silver age romance comics, King’s story here is quite a change from the last volume where Joan is constantly trying to find her footing in a new universe. In this, she is trying to figure out if this world she finds herself in is real, especially now that she has created beings she should love unconditionally.

One could almost see this stop on Joan’s journey as a glimmer of hope, even if it’s a false one. Even as she starts to look at the flaws of this world, she still can’t help but want to stay because of the life she’s created here not necessarily with Don but with her children and grandchildren. Volume one apparently sets up the premise of this universe while volume 2 offers a story of what happens to Joan when her escape hatch no longer works, seemingly arguing that it’s crueler to allow Joan to have hope, even if it’s a false hope, that she can remain indefinitely in wherever she lands.

 

Graphic Content: Whisper of the Woods by Ennun Ana Iurov

 

There is a movie titled Don’t Go Into the Woods, which is also sound advice. In fact, many horror movies and stories are built around the premise of a character going somewhere they weren’t supposed to go, seemingly as an object lesson to not stray from the proper, well-lit path. Not going into the woods is, in fact, a time-honored tradition dating all the way back to Hansel and Gretel (though one could argue whether the children had any choice in the matter). Continuing that tradition of staying very far away from the woods by telling a very basic story is the short graphic novel Whisper of the Woods by Ennun Ana Iurov. 

Adam’s friend Vlad has disappeared. He went to Romania and no one has seen or heard from him, so Adam tries to track him down, venturing not only to a foreign land but to Romania’s most haunted forest, the Hoia Baciu. It is in this forest that the iele roam this forest looking for victims. Vlad might have been a victim of the iele, and Adam, who ventures into the woods, might be next.

Iurov, as both author and illustrator, has created a dark, little fairy tale that follows the basic premise of staying away from haunted places (an idea which frankly would have ended a lot of horror movies before they could get a body count) while also playing on the trope of the visitor to a foreign land or village that ignores the multiple warnings, from the townsfolk to the supernatural seeming omens, to leave. The story is rather basic, and would be rather uninspired if written out in text form, but it does allow Iurov to showcase gorgeous artwork that looks almost like hundred-year-old woodcuts. The barebones story and the artistic choices, like showing the differences of night and day by having vibrant colors during the day and stark black and white scenes at night make the book feel like a beautifully rendered children’s book. It’s a children’s book that’s not necessarily for children (for example, the nudity) but it might scratch a nostalgic itch for readers who long ago discovered they liked being scared all the way back in elementary school.

 

Graphic Content: Phantom Road Vol. 1 by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Hernández Walta

 

Jeff Lemire likes to be weird, and the graphic novel medium is the perfect genre to explore that weirdness. Lemire typically doesn’t tell a brief but powerful story; rather, he slowly introduces spooky elements and lets his readers bask in the uncertainty and their own fear. This time avoiding black barns, Lemire takes to the open road and the worlds where those roads lead in his newest series Phantom Road.

Volume 1 of Phantom Road introduces its main characters. Dom is a long-haul trucker who drives so he doesn’t have to think about the mess his life has become. He comes across a young woman named Birdie as she crawls from the wreckage of an accident. Among that wreckage is a strange artifact that attaches itself to both Birdie and Dom. Now, the two are not only thrust together but they must transport this artifact across America and through a world that is full of monsters.

The tagline of this book is “Mad Max: Fury Road meets The Sandman,” and its aesthetic blends both fictional universes. Gabriel Hernández Walta’s art adds the Mad Max element, and not just when he designs the desolate desert scenery, both in the real world and the other world. Dom’s appearance, especially when wielding a crowbar, is just one leather/armor cosplay combo away from Mad Max’s signature look. Walta also adds the Sandman elements that inform the design of the monsters, or lack of designs. Their faceless, vaguely humanoid forms are off-putting and alien enough to make readers uneasy, and uneasiness is where writer Lemire likes to leave his readers.

Much like Gideon Falls, Lemire begins this story with less information and more atmosphere. Even the truck stop with the far-from-lovable bear mascot adds to the unreal setting of the book. This first volume should leave readers wondering how and why the artifact is leading Dom and Birdie on a quest but intrigued enough to read further volumes and find the story breadcrumbs Lemire will leave.