October Horrors Week 1: Best on the Racks Right Now

It's October again, my favorite month of the year, and not just because my birthday and wedding anniversary fall in it. It's because October is the spookiest of all months, where ghosts, goblins, and other things that go bump in the night are everywhere. I've usually tried to focus October recommended readings and some other posts on horror comics in the past, and hope to do some more of those over the next few weeks, but this week I'm in a time crunch thanks to real life, so I'm going to do a spotlight on the best horror comics I'm reading right now in single issues. I'm not making this a blanket statement, as there are plenty of horror comic I don't read, but if you're in the mood for something spooky, these are a great place to start. So, in no particular order, here we go, and you might want to read this with the lights on.

Afterlife With Archie

If you had said a couple years ago that two of the best horror comics currently being published (if published infrequently) would be coming from modern bastion of wholesome comics Archie Publishing, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed. But now, in 2015? Wow, but Archie knows how to do a scary comic. Afterlife With Archie is a zombie comic, where a failed attempt to resurrect Hot Dog, Jughead's dog, leads to a zombie plague ravaging Riverdale and possibly the world. I started reading it for the amazingly gorgeous art from Francesco Francavilla, and while that is as great as I would have expected, it's Robert Aguirre-Sacasa's  story that really keeps you coming back. After an initial heart rending arc where Archie and the gang watch many of their friends turned into flesh eating monsters, the series current second arc is much quieter in some respects. It's a very character focused story, where we see Betty's history through her journals, where Archie talks his problems out with the ghost of Jughead in a hotel suspiciously similar to the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, where Cheryl Blossom has secrets that are way more terrifying than whatever plan she might have had to steal Archie away from Betty and Veronica. There is still some of the classic Archie soap opera, as Veronica is angry a the fact that Archie has chosen Betty, and Mr. Lodge is still the imperious jerk he ever was, and I love that; the comic is still an Archie comic, even with the zombies tearing up Riverdale. I also love the various ties to folklore and literature that Aguirre-Sacasa works in, from the aforementioned Shining scenes, to pacts with the devil, and great Cthulhu himself. Zombies may be the monster du jour right now, in the same way that vampires were in the '90s, but it's the best zombie stories hat are about the people who are trying to survive, who thy really are and how they interact, and not just he people looking to kill the zombies (this is why The Walking Dead has become such a cross media sensation, and is still a title deserving of a look, although I'm not spotlighting it here because it's The Walking Dead and it doesn't need my recommendation). When you add in the fact that you're not only dealing with those themes and using characters like Archie, who have such a rich history, you get a scary comic that really has you invested in who these characters are from page one.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

The companion title to Afterlife With Archie, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is also written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and exists in its own continuity and takes the classic Sabrina the Teenage Witch character and her supporting cast and sets them in a world where witches are far closer to the classic horror icons they are, and he devil is right around the corner. Set in the 1960's, the comic has the feel of some of the classic horror movies of the time, Rosemary's Baby coming particularly to mind. Sabina is coming in to her own as a witch as the story begins, and has to choose between life as a mortal and life as a witch. There's a lot of the classic metaphor of teen angst/life as horror intrinsic in setting the book as a character is coming of age. Sabrina herself is a nice girl who just happens to worship Satan, and has no problem using witchcraft to make the boy she likes like her back. Her aunts, usually played for laughs, are here powerful witches in their own right who we see flashes behind their mortal guises to their true forms which are monstrous in their own right. And while Sabrina is navigating high school and trying to be a normal girl while deciding if she wants to be a normal girl, Madame Satan is looking to destroy her. Madame Satan is Sabrina's dad's old flame who recently escaped imprisonment in hell and finding the man she blames for her fate dead, she decides to take the revenge on the daughter. We get an elaborate plan from Madame Satan, as she makes her way into Sabrina's life as a teacher, and does everything she can to mess with Sabrina's life from behind the scenes. The most recent issue dealt with Harvey, Sabrina's boyfriend, wandering into the black mass in the woods where Sabrina was being confirmed as a bride of Satan, his death, and the ramifications of it all. It's slow burn horror, with moments of truly monstrous terror spaced out between the events that fallout from it, or are simply quiet, making those horror moments all the darker. Robert Hack, artist on the title, has a great style, at times very realistic, at times truly horrific, and that juxtaposition works very well. I don't know how much research he has done, but the book looks and feels authentically '60s. If you've tried Afterlife and haven't given Sabrina a shot, it's well worth your time, and if you are a fan of classic horror, Sabrina is a book that will work for you.

Colder: Toss the Bones

I wrote a full recommended reading on the original Colder in October a couple years ago, and as the final mini-series in the trilogy debuted this past Wednesday, I thought I'd toss it in here, even though I haven't read the first issue of Toss the Bones yet, on the strength of the original and its sequel, Bad Seed. Colder is the story of Declan and Rese, a couple with a most unusual met cute. You see Reese is a nurse, and Declan was a patient in a waking coma of sorts that she took care of, whose body temperature was unusually cold. Only eventually, Declan woke up, pursued by various evil entities hat feed on or grow or embrace madness, and Declan has to escape them, often by going into a supernatural world parallel our own called the Hungry World, where the things that people afflicted with mental illness's delusions are made real, or possible the world where what they see really exists. The main monsters of Colder, Nimble Jack from he first mini-series and Swivel from the second, aren't traditional monsters of any sort, unless you can view them as vampires of a kind, feeding on something that people produce. Jack is a vicious and cruel trickster figure, with a mad laugh, while Swivel looks like a farmer, and views the madness he sows in a similar way. There is a real hear o the series, as Declan and Reese have a wonderful relationship. But I ill say, as great as Paul Tobin's scripts are, it's Juan Ferreyra who steals the show over and over. While he can absolutely draw people looking like people and doing normal people things, he's a master of creatures and at things being just a bit off. Nimble Jack looks human, but the way he rests his body is a times just a bit off, making him look unsettling. The Hungry World is full of terrifying creatures, all of which I would call beautiful in design and execution if they weren't so hideous. The mythology and world building has been phenomenal, creating this fascinating world of madness unlike anything I've ever seen, and with the final mini-series having just started, it's a great time to catch up and be there for the finale.

Harrow County

The quiet country town is often the site of a murder mystery, where the town keeps its secrets. While urban horror is now more prevalent than country horror (except for the cabin in the woods kind, which is an old chestnut that never goes away), Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook's Harrow County is a country horror story in the grand tradition. Emmy is a girl who lives out on a remote farm with her father. But shortly after she reaches he age she is considered an adult (there's growing up and horror linked again), Emmy begins to display powers, and the local townsfolk start showing up with pitchforks and torches, and I'm not talking metaphorically. Soon, Emmy learns secrets of Harrow County, secrets involving witches, artificial people made real, all the "haints" that occupy the town and its surroundings, and her own origins, which are nothing like she expected. Cullen Bunn, who became a favorite writer of mine with his weird Western The Sixth Gun and Tyler Crook, whose work on B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth is some of the best Mignolaverse art not by Mignola himself, craft a moody story of skeletons, skinless bodies whose skin is still psychically connected to it, a good witch, and with the new arc, another witch who I have a feeling is not so good. When you add in some fun backmatter, like Bunn's tales of supernatural experiences in early letter columns, and a one page back up in most issues that tells another scary story of the supernatural in Harrow County, Harrow County is one of he best looking and best written new series of 2015.

Gotham by Midinght

A lot of comics mash up two genres: the weird Western is a good example, and a lot of times, superhero comics take on aspects of some other genre. But Gotham by Midnight finds a way to mash up three genres, superhero, horror, and police procedural, in a way that not only works, but works really well. Headlined by Jim Corrigan, better known as the human host for he wrathful angel called The Spectre, Gotham by Midnight follows the Midnight Shift, a group of police officers and related professionals brought together by Jim Gordon when he was commissioner to deal with Gotham's supernatural elements. The rest of the squad include Det. Lisa Drake, who is part fairy and has the abilities of a banshee to know when death is near, Dr. Szandor Tarr, forensics and a bit of a mad scientist, Sister Justine, who encountered rue demonic evil and now does her best to help stop it, and their commanding officer, Lt. Weaver. The cases the Midnight Shift have encountered have led them into Slaughter Swamp, to a pair of news pundits who made a deal with the devil, a haunting at Powers Coporation, and a powerful demon that has been working its claws into Gotham for a long time. The police aspect comes into play as Sgt. Rook from Internal Affairs arrives. Rook starts out in issue one as  the way in for the readers, meeting the different members of the Midnight Shift, and encountering the weird. But instead of becoming an ally, as this sort of thing usually goes in fiction, Internal Affairs comes down harder on he Midnight Shift after Rook's investigation, meaning another player is brought in, a lawyer to help the Shift, Kate Spencer, who was the final hero to bar the name Manhunter before Flashpoint, a favorite character of mine, who I'm excited to see back. The most recent issue, issue nine, has cast some doubts on what the Spectre is, and was a great jumping on point, filling you in on what you might not know while also setting up the series final issues, as it has sadly been caught in DC's most recent purge. The art has been great, starting out with Ben Templesmith and his utterly surreal, expressionistic style, and then followed up by Juan Ferreyra, whose work here is as impressive as his work on Colder is. Gotham City has always had a spooky side, and Gotham by Midnight shines a spotlight on those darker corners.

Outcast

Now, I mentioned The Walking Dead before, and everyone out there has at least hard of it. What fewer people have heard of, at least for the moment, is Outcast, Robert Kirkman's other horror comic, this one with artist Paul Azaceta. Outcast is he story of Kyle Barnes, a man plagued by demons. Literally plagued by demons. His mother was possessed, his wife was possessed, and he demons have destroyed his life. At the beginning of the series he's living by himself as a virtual shut in when Reverend Anderson, the pastor who once tried to help Kyle's mother, comes to him for help. Because Anderson believes that Kyle has the power to cast out demons. And once Kyle starts, things begin to spin. Whether demons have been as prevalent in the world up til now, or if Kyle's presence is drawing them out, and exactly why they call him Outcast remain some of the series' mysteries. And then there's Sidney, better known as, well, the Devil. Sidney has entered Kyle's orbit, saving his niece, killing his neighbor and moving into the neighbor's house, and marking the Reverend with an inverted pentagram to scare him off, or at least slow him down. Again, Sidney's motivations are vague, but that's OK. One of the keys of Outcast is that mystery, something that Kirkman is slooooowly paying out. Twelve issues in, we know considerably more than what we did in issue one, but there's a lot left to learn. Kyle is a very sympathetic main character, someone who you feel for. He's a guy who not only can't see his daughter or ex-wife (she got a restraining order against him, since she can't remember being possessed and all she knows is she woke up bruised and beaten), and who fears for the people around him since most of the people he loves have been possessed. Kirkman has also spent time fleshing out the supporting cast, like Kyle's foster-sister, Megan, her husband, Mark, and their daughter, Holly, so you care about them too, and dread what you know is going to be the horrors coming their way. There are two kinds of horror, the kind where you root for the killer or monster and the kind where you fear for the victims. Outcast falls firmly in the latter, and I have a feeling there's only more dread to come.

Nailbiter

OK, I'm going to be up front. I really enjoy all the comics on this list. But if I had to choose a favorite horror comic currently being published, it would be Nailbiter, from Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson. Nailbiter isn't supernatural horror like the other books on this list, but is in the model of the slasher film, although I wouldn't be surprised if something supernatural appears by the end. I've reviewed a bunch of issues of Nailbiter, so you can go check out those reviews, but here's the series in broad strokes. Buckaroo, Oregon has a particularly dubious claim to fame: over a dozen of is residents have become serial killers. And one of them, Edward Charles Warren, called the Nailbiter for his choice of victims being people who bite their nails, is found not guilty and returns home. But while Warren's return serves as the inciting incident of the series, it's when Agent Carroll of the FBI, the man who brought in Warren, calls his old friend Finch of army intelligence to tell him that he's fond the secret to Buckaroo's propensity for spawning murderers that he series begins. Finch arrives to find Carroll missing, and strikes up an alliance with local sheriff, Shannon Crane, to find his friend and maybe the secret of Buckaroo along the way. The entire cast are well written and varied, from Alice, an outsider girl who feels she's destined to be the next Buckaroo Butcher, to Reverend Fairgold, the local man of God who has his own set of issues, to Warren himself, who is one of those slick, charismatic killers. The characters and the story are phenomenal, and it's paced to perfection. Williamson and Henderson know how to lay out a sequence to absolutely ramp up the tension. Issue nine has a sequence in Crane's house that is so absolutely perfect, so perfectly laid out, that I can think of few scenes in a comic that sent more chills up my spine. The third arc of Nailbiter wrapped up a couple months ago, an arc that answered some questions about Buckaroo while opening up a bunch of others, and the new one starts this month, so there are three trades waiting to be read just in time or Halloween.


Oh, and before I go, something truly scary... This week is Banned Books Week. I'm a supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and any other organization that champions free speech. Every idea may not be right for everyone, but everyone should have the right to share their ideas, and books, be they novels, comics, or anything else, are still my favorite way to dive into an idea. Comics are being banned constantly, partially because people don't understand that comics are for everyone, and partially because people generally like to ban things they themselves don't understandthis link over the CBLDF website. and come back here next week for more horror comics that I'm sure have been banned somewhere.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 10/22

It's Halloween week, folks, and so for this week I'm going to review some comics with tales of horror and the supernatural this week. Plenty of other great books hit this week, including a double dose of Greg Rucka in Lazarus and Stumptown, a  new She-Hulk from Charles Soule, a delightfully funny issue of The Delinquents, and the debut of an interesting new direction for Catwoman, but for this week? Horror reigns in the Matt Signal reviews.

Colder: The Bad Seed #1
Story: Paul Tobin
Art: Juan Ferreyra

I did a recommendation for the original Colder mini-series on Friday, and so I'm happy to say I can review and recommend the first issue of the second series, The Bad Seed, today. Since the defeat of Nimble Jack, Declan and Reece have been living happily together. Reece is working again, and Declan is using his powers to help the insane recover; she even brings him to work to meet her coworkers and to let him help some of the patients. This bit of idyllic life isn't going to last. There is a hint that Reece is still effected by the events of the first series, as she asks him if, with Jack dead, they are safe from the Hungry World, the world of the insane, and Declan assures her they are safe, although there is a hint he is unsure. And he is quickly proven right. A new monster appears, one who has a hunger for fingers, and who is using them for some macabre planting, walking around with a clay pot and planning for something to grow. He also shows a fascination with Declan, whose fingers he "feeds." Whatever this monster has in mind, it's not going to end well for our protagonists. The plot of the issue is simple, and sets up the new series, but since it's been quite a while since the last series, I can see why. It also establishes the powers and creep factor of our new monster, which is high. He doesn't seem to have the same macabre madness as Jack, but is more focused on his planting and harvesting, which is somehow more disturbing; planting is associated with growth and nature, so to see something using it in an evil way seems wrong on so many levels. Juan Ferreyra's monster designs continue to impress, as we see the madness of the people Declan is looking in on embodied by horrors surrounding them, and of course our new lead monster is, as you can see from the cover, made out of fingers. Again, there is something particularly unnatural about that, something off kilter that just made my skin crawl. It's good to be back in the world of Colder, but beware, as its a world where something dark waits around every corner.

Five Ghosts #13
Story: Frank J. Barbiere
Art: Chris Mooneyham

Five Ghosts is back, and just in time for Halloween. While the first arc of the series, about treasure hunter Fabian Grey, who has five ghosts of great literary figures/archetypes in him, was an Indiana Jones-style pulp adventure, and the next was a pirates/shipwrecked adventure, this third arc is cemented deeply in the horror genre. Set in Romania, the story opens with Fabian saving a young boy from what seem to be vampires, and finds out the boy is bringing medicine to the nearest village, where a plague has set in. Arriving in a village, we find that Fabian is following a clue to his the whereabouts of his best friend, kidnapped at the end of the last issue. When the village elder sees the symbol that is the clue, we hear a tale of the rich family who once lived in a nearby manor, a story that is gothic and horrible, with sickness, death, and elder gods. Fabian has dreams where he must confront one of his ghosts, the Vampire, who is being brought out by being in its native, for want of a better word, genre, and though Fabian wins, the Vampire has always been the most insistent of the ghosts and I wonder if Fabian will be able to hold him back forever. Finally, we see a man in a wagon dressed as a plague doctor, you know, with the creepy bird mask, and we learn that he is not curing the plague, but spreading it, and is creating more of the vampire/zombies from the beginning of the issue. Five Ghosts is a comic that has the best kind of pulp vibe, taking all the tropes of classic adventure genres and mixing them together. It's take on horror is atmospheric, both from writer Frank Barbiere's script, full of portent and mystery, and artist Chris Mooneyham's moody, dark art working to add to the sense of gloom. The vampire/zombie monsters are threatening and wreak of evil, and there's something I've always found unsettling about plague doctors, and Mooneyham makes this one all the more unsettling. With mystery, monsters, and heroics, the new arc of Five Ghosts looks to be another exciting adventure of Fabian Grey.

The Unwritten: Apocalypse #10
Story: Mike Carey
Art: Peter Gross

The final arc of The Unwritten, "Annals of Comparative Literature," begins with Tom Taylor, the man whose father sewed his life into the life of his fictional character, and his band of allies preparing to make one final attempt to stop the evil Pullman from wiping out existence. Meanwhile, Pullman and his allies are attempting to, well, wipe out existence. But it works for neither of them. The Unwritten is a story about stories and their power, so everyone quickly realizes that tools of power from a story have no power out of that context, so a race is on, as the story ends with Tommy coming face-to-wand with his fictional counterpart, boy wizard Tommy Taylor. The action of this issue is a lot of talking and planing, so it gives the characters time to have some great moments, especially Pauly Bruckner. When Bruckner was originally introduced, he was a comedic figure, a hitman trapped in a Winnie-the-Pooh type story where he was in the body of an  anthropomorphic rabbit. But as the series has continued, a character I thought was a one off gag has grown in depth, filled with anger at his fate, and now a more pathetic figure, just wanting to get back to the story. Having betrayed Tom to Pullman, he now abandons Pullman to warn Tom. That evolution of Pauly is one of the things that makes The Unwritten great, taking something so minor and making it so deep. There's also a wonderful moment between Tom and Lizzy, his romantic interest. I've been rooting for these kids to get and stay together for years, so seeing that they are now really a couple is nice. In the world of Tommy Taylor, Pullman's messenger encounters Count Ambrosio, Tommy's arch nemesis, who has appeared in our world a few times, possessing people, but to see him in his full vampiric power (see, vampires, bringing it back around to horror) makes him seem a more daunting foe. And of course, in the background, the literal puppet master, Madam Rausch, plays the two sides against each other. I'm wondering if the story with Pullman will be wrapped up next issue, leaving Tom to deal with Rausch in the very end, or if the final battler will have three sides. One way or the other, this issue starts what should be a grand climax to The Unwritten.

Recommended Reading for 10/24: Colder

It's October, and I usually spend my favorite month doing recommended readings for one of my favorite genres: horror comics. I've fallen behind on that this month, but I'm hoping to remedy that today.

"We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad," wrote Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This quote could be attributed as accurately to Colder, the horror series written by Paul Tobin and drawn by Juan Ferreyra. It's a tale of madness, compassion, love, hunger, and cold.

When I first read solicitation copy for Colder, I was surprised. I really like Paul Tobin as a writer, but I was familiar with his writing almost exclusively as all ages work, including the Eisner nominated Bandette, the charming Banana Sunday, both with Colleen Coover, and Marvel's late and lamented all ages "Marvel Adventures" line. But if Mark Millar's best work can be on Superman Adventures, than a writer known for all ages comics can write horror. And mixing in the lavish and horrific art from Juan Ferreyra, it seemed a no brainer to sample it, and it was well worth it.

One of the thing that immediately grabbed my attention about Colder was the fact that it's a horror comic that isn't depending on any of the classic monster tropes. I don't have anything against classic monsters; far from it. I love The Walking Dead, Tomb of Dracula, and any number of other monster themed comics. But I'm impressed when someone thinks outside the box. The monster that Paul Tobin creates for this series is Nimble Jack, who is an invisible psychic vampire of sorts. He feeds off of, and inspires, insanity. So not only do we have a monster who can move hidden through the world and views people as just food, but one who can do one of the things that any thinking person dreads; he can push you to lose your mind. There's something terrifying about being lost in your own mind, and Tobin played with that fear in a way that made my skin crawl.

A great villain/monster isn't the heart of a horror comic, though. If you don't have leads that you care about, then the comic is nothing more than an exercise in how much gore or terror you can squeeze between the pages (there is also the Tales from the Crypt model, where you often are looking for the lead to get their comeuppance, but those work best in short pieces, I find). The people who are the heart of the story are Declan and Reece. The first issue opens in an asylum in 1941, some seventy years earlier than the rest of the story, and we see Declan infected with... something by Jack as the asylum burns around them. Flash forward to the present, where Reece is a nurse who is taking care of mysterious patient, Declan, who has been in a waking coma for as long as anyone can remember. After the care facility he was in closed, Reece actually took Declan in, a Declan who does not seem to have aged a day since the 40s, and one whose body temperature is preternaturally cold.

Reece is tough, resourceful, and has her feet planted firmly in a rational world. All that changes when Jack returns, speaks briefly to Declan and leaves. Declan then speaks to Reece for the first time, which is understandably shocking to Reece. Declan takes her out, and tries to explain everything that has happened to him that he can remember, but is disturbed by Jack, who he knows he must avoid. because Jack has been basically aging Declan like a fine wine for eighty years, waiting for the feats of all feasts. To escape, Declan takes Reece into another world, or gives her a new perspective on this world, the one shared by those who aren't in touch with reality as we all understand it. One way or the other, it's a dark world full of monsters and weirdness, and Reece does not take well to it. Now both Reece and Declan smell of insanity, a smell that attracts Jack, and it's a race against time to save Reece before Declan's body temperature drops even lower and kills him.

The coldness that the title refers to is Declan's, but it's more than just a way to preserve Declan. Declan's memory of his time before Jack infected him is limited, and he doesn't want to remember, because he's fairly sure that he did horrible things. He also has a gift, sort of the mirror image of Jack's. While Jack feeds on madness, driving people insane and eventually to suicide, Declan can reverse madness as well as increase it, but only at the cost of precious degrees of body temperature. Every time he steps into the realm of madness or helps someone,it moves him closer to death or to being Jack's frozen prey. It's a great set up, since there's now a ticking clock on top of the supernatural predator hunting our heroes and Reece's own increasing separation from reality.

Tobin ratchets the tension up throughout the series using all these elements, building to a battle between Declan and Jack for Reece. And it's a deeply personal battle for Declan, as it's fairly clear that he has fallen in love with Reece during his time with her. He's been aware of everything that happened to him, and he sees what a good person Reece is. The addition of the love story might seem like a bit too much, but it folds so nicely into everything else going on. The fact that Reece is completely unsure of what to make of Declan and isn't sure what she feels about him adds a dimension to the relationship, making it not a simple girl-meets-boy-with-a-supernatural-affliction and falls in love with him story, which let's be fair, is a genre trope that has been done a lot in recent years as well.

The series has an air of mystery to it that adds to the sense of unease. Exactly what Jack is and how he feeds is parsed out gradually, and I haven't revealed all the details of that. And Declan's mysterious past, exactly why he was in the asylum, what the doctors there were doing to him and the other patients, and what exactly his capabilities are, is teased out, keeping the reader on their toes and just a bit off balance, not letting him or her get comfortable enough to settle in. That's what the best horror stories do, keep you looking over your shoulder, metaphorically and, let's be frank, sometimes literally.

I don't want to talk details about how the series ends, but I do want to say just how perfectly in tone the ending is. The best kind of horror stories, ones like The Exorcist and The Stand, end with at least a touch of ambiguity. It might be a black and white world, with monsters in it, but even when white wins, black is still out there and it's fingers are still creeping into the world. The release of a sequel tells you at least one of the protagonists survives, but the condition either of them might be in? Well read the book and find out.

The series would have been a good read with any artist, but artist Juan Ferreyra takes the work up to an entirely different level. I love an artist who can draw very expressive and distinctive faces, and Ferreyra hits that one out of the park. The various looks of madness and hunger in Jack, the confusion in Reece, and the lost looks of Declan are perfect. And the way he draws Jack's body, contorting in unnatural ways adds to the wrongness of everything about him.

Those skills are important for any artist, but for an artist on a horror comic, there's a skill that is just as important: monsters. And Ferreyra shines there even brighter. The time spent in the world of the insane is a time filled with monsters. Flayed giants, hellhounds, things made of bones, and the deformed perceptions of the mad as to what they look like themselves ooze all over the page. The world itself is a rundown, haunted looking city that feels like menace waits around every corner, and it does.

I've heard it said about colorists that if you notice their work, they're doing something wrong, which is a statement I couldn't disagree with more, and I want to draw special attention to Ferreyra and Eduardo Ferreyra and Laura Binaghi, who are credited with color assist on the series. The difference in colors between the real world and the world of the insane is part of what makes that world so disturbing. And the slow shift in Declan's color, as he gets colder, is a great visual cue to his state; without it, the pressure of Declan's situation would not be as palpable.

Horror is a genre that is well suited to comics. It combines the visceral, of the still panel and the image, with the imagination, as you craft the flow of the action. A well done horror comic will draw you in and leave you unsettled. Colder is one such comic, one that leaves you wondering just how tenuous our hold on the world is, and what exactly might be waiting in the dark corners of our own minds. It's a great read, but if I might make one suggestion before you pick it up: Make sure you have a warm blanket to curl up under once you start. You'll need it.

Oh, and in case you needed any other incentive, in one panel, Jack turns into a werewolf, and Declan punches him out.

Pretty sweet, huh?

Colder is available in a trade paperback from Dark Horse Comics at comic shops and on-line. The first issue of the sequel, Colder: The Bad Seed, was released this past Wednesday. The creators are also currently collaborating on Prometheus: Fire & Stone, part of the Prometheus/Aliens/Predator crossover, also from Dark Horse.