Joe Hill—the mastermind behind N0S4A2 and Locke & Key—has arrived at DC, curating his own cutting-edge horror comics pop-up! Hill House Comics will terrify readers with a smart, subversive and scary lineup of five original limited series. Hill House Comics debuted with Basketful of Heads, written by Hill and illustrated by Leomacs. The chills continued in the following months with The Low, Low Woods; The Dollhouse Family; Daphne Byrne and Plunge, from some of the biggest names in horror storytelling. Enter to win the entire chill-filled line! If you dare…
Frankenstein’s Monster
Swamp Thing
Cryptids
No Face
Is your spine tingling yet? Who would you be most afraid to meet in a dark alley? To find under your bed?
Doctor Baker, a descendent of the original Doctor Frankenstein, is determined to have her son back after a terrible tragedy and has followed in her famous ancestor’s footsteps. The OG monster isn’t pleased that version 2.0 may or may not be an improvement over the original where morals and ethics are concerned. Clearly the “good’ doctors haven’t evolved much. Where does that leave the people between Baker and that which she has wrought? Where does it leave the monsters? And who, exactly do we mean when we say monster?
Who needs protecting from whom? Who’s the real danger to the world, man or machine? Creator or creation? Hubris or vengeance? In the end, do we all contain the seeds of our own destruction?
Most of my favorite Swamp Thing moments involve his somewhat bemusedly exasperated dealings with John Constantine, who thinks he can command “Swampy” the same way he would one of his demons. He’s wrong and the evergreen tree tattoo on his ass proves it (canon).
Stiefvater and Beem’s graphic novel is a new spin on Swamp Thing’s origin story, exploring the ways in which Alec Holland starts to grow apart from his twin Walker in the summer before both start college and how Alec’s isolation leads him along the path to his destiny.
The creatures who inhabit Carmen Maria Machado’s Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, are most definitely not of the good boi variety: rabbits with human eyes. Deer women. Trees that bleed. Of course, the town she’s crafted as the setting for The Low, Low Woods is based on Centralia, Pennsylvania, once a coal mining hub, now a settlement with a sum total population of seven (the state government relocated the willing remainder of the population after one of the coal mines caught fire in 1962. It is still on fire today) and who knows what havoc almost 60 years of toxic fumes has wrought on the local wildlife…
It’s only a four hour drive. Maybe someday I’ll get up the nerve to go find out.
One of the most frequently represented characters in these diverse works is No Face from Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away. No Face is a lonely spirit who adapts to the personalities of those around it. It is unclear whether the spirit has its own corporeal form, though it does wear an ominously blank mask when in its natural state. Part of his adaptive ability allows him to consume other beings and take on their appearances and personalities—when it is around or swallows cruel, arrogant characters No Face becomes cruel and arrogant; when the people around No Face are kind, gentle, and happy, it takes on those traits. No Face is capable of independent thought and decision making.
No Face is both a fascinating and terrifying presence: it could capture everything you want in a friend but, at the same time, it could infiltrate your life without your ever knowing, a shape shifter in your sanctum, a shrike in your nest.
There’s also always the possibility you’ll be next…
Happy Hauntings, ghouls and goblins.
