30 Days of Night by Steve Niles (story) and Ben Templesmith (art)
30 Days of Night is an excellent horror comic by Steve Niles with quite creepy art by Ben Templesmith. After a short introduction by Clive Barker, we are taken to Barrow, Alaska on November 17, 2001, the last day the sun shines before there are thirty days of night, which, if you think about it, would be just about perfect for you if you were a vampire with some serious allergies to the sun!
June 22nd, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | niles | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Revivial (Volume Two): Live Like You Mean It by Tim Seeley (writer), Mike Norton (artist), Mark Englert (colors), and Crank! (letters)
Wasau, a small town in Wisconsin, is our locale for strange happenings in Revival: The dead are coming back to life. And not in some zombie-like fashion, either. In fact, if you did not know they were dead to begin with, and they had died fairly recently, you would not even know that they were dead watching them move around. There are also ghost-like figures in the woods,
May 27th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Revival (Volume One): You’re Among Friends by Tim Seeley (writer) and Mike Norton (artist)
Revival is marketed as “rural noir,” but it is horror, too. Tim Seeley and Mike Norton have created an eight-volume story, and volume one, “You’re Among Friends,” starts off, after an introduction by Jeff Lemire, with a shocking event: Ms. Tao, a reporter given the worst columns to write, is forced to write one on unusual jobs. In the opening scene, she is making a video recording as she interviews the town’s crematorium technician at one in the morning.
April 22nd, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Stumptown (Vol. One): Stumptown Vol. 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo by Greg Rucka (writer) & Matthew Southworth (artist)
Stumptown volume one collects the first four issues of Greg Rucka’s excellent comic book series about P.I. Dex Parios. Clearly influenced by Hammett, Chandler, MacDonald, and Parker, Rucka takes the tradition of the hardboiled P.I. and puts a female in the lead. With excellent art by Matthew Southworth, this is a series to seek out.
The comic starts out with Dex’s trying not to get shot by men who have taken her out for disposal by a lake at dusk.
April 1st, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse (Vol. 2): It Only Hurts When I Pee by Ben Templesmith
The slapstick horror of Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse continues in volume two, It Only Hurts When I Pee. Wormwood is an “intergalactic, interdimensional, immortal, happy-go-lucky larval worm thing” that “wears corpses likes suits.” You can see the worm he is in the eyeball of each corpse. And he has his gang: Mr. Pendulum a “robotic drinking companion”; Ms. Medusa, ex-girlfriend and manager of Wormwood’s favorite bar, The Dark Alley; and Phoebe Phoenix,
March 11th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 3 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse (Volume 1): Birds, Bees, Blood and Beer by Ben Templesmith
Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse (Volume 1): Birds, Bees, Blood and Beer is first notable because of the identifiable art of Ben Templesmith, who both wrote and drew this first of three volumes. Ben Templesmith is known for his work on 30 Days of Night. The art in Wormwood is haunting, with shifting lights marking the seedy backdrop of a creepy cityscape and “The Dark Alley,” a stripper bar that the Gentleman Corpse seems to like to hang out in with Mr.
February 25th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Junji Ito is, in the United States, the best-known creator of horror manga (Japanese comics). So far, seventeen volumes have been translated into English (some are as long as 750 pages). Most of what has been published are collections of short stories like Shiver and Fragments of Horror. However, there are graphic novels by Ito that tell one long story, like Gyo, Tomie, and his masterpiece, Uzumaki.
February 11th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Shiver by Junji Ito
Seventeen books by Junji Ito have now been translated into English, and while a few of them are graphic novels telling a single story, most are short story collections. Perhaps the best of them is Shiver. Shiver contains ten excellent tales and includes commentary by the author on every story as well as a final afterword. Each story also includes at the end samples of Ito’s notes (with translations). These notes, along with the commentary, give interesting insights into the stories.
January 28th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Junji Ito’s masterpiece is without a doubt Uzumaki. Junji Ito is a manga creator (writer and artist), and he is known for his horror graphic novels and story collections. The bulk of his work is made up of story collections such as the brilliant Shiver. Uzumaki, however, is a long six hundred-plus page single-story book. Yet, at the same time, it is still made up of discreet, individual stories. Each chapter, while featuring the same main characters, focuses on another aspect of this strange town,
January 14th, 2023. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Tomie: No Use Escaping by Junji Ito
Tomie: No Use Escaping by Junji Ito is a delightful set of horror stories, and if you are a horror fan and have not read any Junji Ito, you are definitely missing out! In the United States, Ito is the best-known horror manga artist. So far, seventeen volumes of his work have been translated into English. The Tomie stories are important, because the first manga story Ito ever wrote in Japan was a Tomie story. Twenty stories about Tomie are included in this massive near-750 page volume.
December 24th, 2022. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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