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Graphic Novel Review: When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

Cover art for When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

Silver Sprocket, 2024 (previously published by Koyama Press in 2019)

ISBN-13: 9798886200409

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:    Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

On a dark and stormy night, a cat woman arrives at the mysterious Countess’ castle on an unspoken mission. The Countess mentions that this attractive visitor is not the first to come on this mighty errand. She is offered a warm bath after being out in the rain for so long, for which she accepts, and this is interrupted by loud knocks on the door. The cat woman ventures out to search out her prey, peeking through a keyhole, where she sees the Countess shedding her skin. When the Countess catches her at the door, a violent and erotically driven confrontation happens between the noblewoman and the cat.

 

I appreciate Carroll’s attention to Gothic literature tropes in her sequential art. The structure of the story flows in such a way that the eyes do not have time to rest most of the time. The frenetic pace blends with the reader’s sense of unease as the cat woman explores the castle and is dragged along the halls by the Countess, and when the final battle ensues.

 

Something else I enjoy about Carroll’s work is her use of color, as she uses the most bold selection almost as another character itself. In the case of When I Arrived at the Castle, she uses black, white, and red. The red acts as solid backgrounds, text bubbles, the text itself, outlines of various figures, doors, flooring, skin, blood, and more. Spending a few minutes exploring the red in the pages was an interesting exercise in reading images without words.

 

If you are looking for a standalone Gothic horror graphic novel for your collection, you can’t go wrong with When I Arrived at the Castle. If you have not picked up Carroll’s Through the Woods, I encourage you to do that, as well. Recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on June 1, 2024 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: Lot 13 by Steve Niles, art by Glenn Fabry

Lot 13 - Niles, Steve

Lot 13 by Steve Niles, art by Glenn Fabry

Dark Horse, 2023

ISBN: 9781506734484

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

The story opens in 1670, in Fairfax, Virginia. The bodies of the Wyatt family are on trial. The father, Robert, stands accused of murdering his family before committing suicide. The court ultimately finds him guilty of mortal sin and cast their bodies into unhallowed ground for eternity.

 

Time switches abruptly to the modern day. A married couple are finally ready to move into their dream home. Their three children aren’t as ready as their parents to leave their friends and apartment, but they will get used to the idea in time. The family load up into the moving van, and head to their new home in Fairfax. Unfortunately, when they arrive, the house isn’t ready to be occupied, and the cozy family has to find other accommodations. After an accident on the road, they come across an apartment building, where they are welcomed by an elderly man. When they start seeing things, the secrets of the mysterious building emerge, and they find themselves fighting for their lives.

 

The story is okay, but not great. It is good if you just need some gore. Some things don’t line up or even get addressed. For instance, when the family hits what appears to be a child in the middle of the road with the moving van, gore is all over the front of it and the road in one panel, and in the next it is gone. There is no viscera on the hood, no body parts littering the road. There is also no discussion over what just happened, just the son pointing at a random building nearby advertising apartments to rent for a night to a year. The family just appears to forget what they just saw. The incident is never spoken of afterward. Weird things happen in the building, and some of it is treated in a similar manner. It makes me wonder if the family often has mass hallucinations to make them just gloss over such things.

 

It took me a minute to remember the name Glenn Fabry. I admit I am really bad with names. As soon as it hit me, I knew the art was going to be intense. His covers for Preacher are incredible, and his art in general is fantastic. Fabry goes above and beyond with the amount of gore in this one. Highly recommended, more for the art that the story

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on March 15, 2024 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil, illustrations by George Williams

cover art for Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil

 

Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil, illustrations by George Williams

Oni Press, 2023

ISBN: 9781637152362

Available: Paperback, KIndle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

It’s 1979. Mitch wakes up after a terrible assault near the local Y. His friends scold him for going there alone and take him home to recuperate. There’s also been a murder in the quiet suburb of Columbiana, New Jersey. The body of Pastor Holley’s wife, Kelly, has been found with demonic sigils carved into her body.

 

New Jersey Sheriff Mullen and FBI Agent Garrett partner up to investigate the case. At least, that’s how it appears to the locals. Behind the scenes, they are devising a Satanic Panic cover to conceal their own crimes. They set their sights on a group of queer punks; Mitch, Lupe, Terri, and Jackson.

 

Sheriff Mullen hears a rumor that Pastor Holley records extra sermons for himself, and confronts the priest about them. It takes a little convincing, but Father Holley turns over some of the tapes to be played on the local radio station. A federal agent issues a warning, announcing the lurid details of satanic rituals, and asks teenagers to keep an eye out for anyone different. After a violent altercation between Lupe and the manager on duty at the local grocery store, the authorities quickly pin Kelly’s murder on the teens. When the friends flee to a cabin in the woods, they find the building gone and a bloodstained pentacle embedded in the ground. Mitch knows they aren’t alone out there.

 

I love a good Satanic Panic plot. With a diverse cast of characters, each with a unique personality and story, Let Me Out has a unique angle on the “devil in the details”. There is good LGBTQ+ representation, as well as people of color. There are parents and adults who are not accepting of their children, which is difficult to stomach, but is a painful reality some LGBTQ+ teens face. As hard as it was to confront on the page, I am glad that Nahil didn’t shy away from that. The character designs were really good and well rendered, as were the backgrounds and sweeping landscapes.

 

Nahil and Williams opted to include trigger warnings at the beginning of the book. I know there have been conversations in the horror community about the idea of including these warnings in general. My view is that if it makes someone’s enjoyment of a book better to have a warning, I have no problem with that. For those of us who are library workers, we are probably familiar with Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science. Content warnings align well with three of the five laws: every reader their book; every book its reader; and save the time of the reader. Highly recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on March 11, 2024 by , Reply
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