Rounding up some of the best spooky stories to pick up before the holiday if you’re spending Halloween at home.
WARNING: The following contains minor spoilers for Tales from the Umbrella Academy: You Look Like Death, Stillwater, Spy Island, We Only Find Them When They’re Dead, and Razorblades: The Horror Magazine, all on sale now.
Halloween is just around the corner, and while it might be necessary to celebrate a little differently, that doesn’t mean the holiday is cancelled. Even if celebrating from home, there are plenty of scary movies to watch, and just as many horror comics. Here are five of the best horror comics sure to deliver chills and thrills this Halloween.
Tales from the Umbrella Academy: You Look Like Death
From Gerard Way, Shaun Simon, I.N.J. Culbard, and Nate Piekos of Blambot, a ghostly fan-favorite character arc from Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy makes its way to the comic book page in this telling of Klaus’ journey out into the world. While the Netflix adaptation saw Klaus down on his luck just before stumbling into the open arms of a very wealthy sugar mama only to accidentally start a cult, what the book has to up the ante can be summed up with exactly four words: Monkey vampire crime lord. Between that and the ghosts, there are more than enough scares on hand to classify this book as a Halloween all-star.
Stillwater
Stillwaters is a trip into the horrors of small-town life, by Chip Zdarsky, Ramon K Perez, Mike Spicer, and Rus Wooton starts with a thud more than a bang. After Daniel loses his job and gets into a fight with a bouncer, more than just his ego is bruised. His friend Tony is in the midst of trying to cheer him up when Daniel receives a strange delivery at his home. He’s been summoned to the sleepy town of Stillwater to deal with the estate of a distant relative he didn’t know he had. Daniel and Tony don’t get to enjoy their stay in Stillwater, unfortunately, when they witness a child fall to his death. When the citizens of Stillwater show little to no concern, it becomes clear that something sinister is going on, and the friends know entirely too much.
Spy Island
The Bermuda Triangle has something of a reputation, to say the least. This reputation is embraced, twisted, and warped into something scary and hilarious in Spy Island by Chelsea Cain, Lia Miternique, Elise McCall, Rachelle Rosenberg, Joe Caramagna, and Stella Greenvoss. In a world where carnivorous mermaids are an endangered species, everyone is somebody else, and that mime you smoked a cigarette with might just be your long lost father, nothing is considered too much. Reading like a mash-up of Archer and Ugly Americans, this series really is its own island. Aside from the phenomenal and fantastic world-building, the supplemental art and mixed media compositions by Stella Greenvoss bring the series to life in a way that major comics rarely are.