MrBallen Presents: Strange, Dark & Mysterious — The Graphic Stories by MrBallen, Robert Venditti & Andrea Mutti

I am genuinely loving the resurgence of horror comics, as well as the myriad channels by which they’re coming onto the market. Some cynics may say that books like these are just a cash grab, but I’d honestly never even heard of MrBallen before this engaging volume landed on my desk. Call me an old but I, for one, am super glad that the author decided to expand from podcasts — a medium I tend not to engage with — to graphic novels — a medium I very much do. As of the time of writing, I still haven’t heard any of his podcast work. I can, however, attest to the fact that he knows how to tell an engaging story, if this terrific book is anything to go by.

The nine stories collected here go from creepy urban legend to outright savage horror as former Navy SEAL turned professional storyteller John B Allen or, as he’s more popularly known, MrBallen mines a wealth of material gathered from all around the globe. Whether describing terrifying, and sometimes deadly, experiences camping in the woods or extremely well-documented tales of inexplicable events and disappearances, these are all stories pulled from real life. More importantly to the connoisseur of strangeness — as I consider myself to be, as well — these nine tales are genuinely obscure. Fans of MrBallen may have heard them all covered in his podcast before but they were almost all entirely new to me, which is saying a lot considering the amount of spooky traditional media I’ve consumed in my lifetime.

Robert Venditti was given the task of shaping these varied stories into scripts more appropriate for the graphic novel format. Frankly, he does a brilliant job of it. Each short is perfectly paced for suspense, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he worked closely with artist Andrea Mutti for layouts. Like the best of old-school horror comics, the writing is punchy and blends seamlessly with the illustrations. Reading the book feels less like an active experience of text than an almost passive experience of hearing the story being told to you — perhaps by MrBallen himself, either podcast-style or while you’re sitting together around a campfire, as the cover cleverly suggests — with the enriching bonus of having the scenes brought to life by the illustrated panels.

And what panels! I’m convinced I’ve encountered Mr Mutti’s work before, even if my usual cataloguing methods have turned up no relevant titles. Doesn’t matter tho: his illustrations here are pitch perfect, whether he’s depicting the innocent joy of our characters’ lives before the horror unfolds, to their rising suspense as they realize that they’re caught in a web of the inexplicable, to the sheer terror of the doomed. His ink and watercolor art lends itself beautifully to the otherworldly quality of the stories, whether in reference to historical events, dreams or more contemporary accounts so disorienting as to feel completely detached from reality.

This volume is a wonderful addition to the collection of any fan of the weird, whether or not you follow MrBallen through his other media efforts. His stories are genuinely intriguing and it’s not very likely that I would have encountered them in his usual podcast format. Here’s hoping he’ll keep producing more of these excellent books with his collaborators, highlighting obscure but extremely interesting urban legends and tales of horror from around the world.

MrBallen Presents: Strange, Dark & Mysterious — The Graphic Stories by MrBallen, Robert Venditti & Andrea Mutti was published October 1 2024 by Ten Speed Graphic and is available from all good booksellers, including