Category: Horror

Shadowplay: Midnight School by Sam Fonseca

Holy Moses, what a debut! Granted, this isn’t Sam Fonseca’s first book ever, but I genuinely can’t remember the last time I was so impressed by an English-language horror comic debut. And with a kick-ass soundtrack to boot! But I’m getting ahead of myself, partly because it’s a bit of challenge to describe the book …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/04/01/shadowplay-midnight-school-by-sam-fonseca/

Bowling With Corpses by Mike Mignola & Dave Stewart

subtitled & Other Strange Tales From Lands Unknown. With lettering by Clem Robins. Y’know, I never seemed to hit Mike Mignola’s work at quite the right time. I’ve long been interested in the Hellboy and BPRD franchises, but every time I managed to pick up a book, I was quickly flummoxed by being required to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/19/bowling-with-corpses-by-mike-mignola-dave-stewart/

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

Happy Women’s History Month, readers! To begin with, let’s look at an arresting novella about a young woman who refuses to play by the rules of Victorian England, no matter the cost to herself or to anyone around her. Winifred Notty is a troubled soul. Raised by a mother driven to madness by the intolerable …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/03/victorian-psycho-by-virginia-feito/

Scary Godmother Compendium: This Was Your Childhood by Jill Thompson

What a charm- and value-packed compendium of virtually all the Scary Godmother material published to date! I knew of Jill Thompson from her work on Neil Gaiman’s Death and Endless properties for DC Comics, but hadn’t realized the extent of her oeuvre otherwise. In particular, I had no idea that her own original creation, Scary …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/12/18/scary-godmother-compendium-this-was-your-childhood-by-jill-thompson/

Cold Snap by Lindy Ryan

I can see what Lindy Ryan was trying to do here, given my steeping in world mythology, but I think it needed a little more explaining so that the average reader can figure out what’s actually going on in this horror novella of guilt and grief. Just a few weeks ago, Derek Sinclaire died, falling …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/19/cold-snap-by-lindy-ryan/

A Christmas Ghost Story by Kim Newman

I don’t know if this is the perfect complement or counterprogramming to my eldest child and I watching and really enjoying Agatha All Along together. Probably a little of both — tho my kid will likely have little interest in this book, alas. That might be for the best tho, as it’s A Chilling Tale …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/08/a-christmas-ghost-story-by-kim-newman/

Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson

Oh my God, this was incredible and terrifying all at once. Spicy, sweet and hardcore revolting, this sapphic horror novella breathes new life into the trope of obsessive love as a lonely young woman falls hard for a mysterious figure she meets at the fair. Ro’s recovery from being betrayed by her ex-boyfriend, and the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/24/bloom-by-delilah-s-dawson/

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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/22/mrballen-presents-strange-dark-mysterious-the-graphic-stories-by-mrballen-robert-venditti-andrea-mutti/

Spinetinglers 3 by R. L. Stine

When R. L. Stine started making headlines as a writer with the Fear Street novels, I was already aging out of his target audience. I know that that’s a weird thing to say given how I voraciously read books across all age ranges now, but having grown up on Nicholas Fisk and Scary Stories To …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/09/spinetinglers-3-by-r-l-stine/

UFO Mushroom Invasion by Shirakawa Marina

translated and edited by historian Ryan Holmberg as part of Smudge, “a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga”. Honestly, this was rad and creepy all at once. The original manga was published in 1976, and has been translated and repackaged here for English-speaking audiences, with illuminating essays and notes to boot. Shirakawa …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/09/30/ufo-mushroom-invasion-by-shirakawa-marina/