This month brings an assortment of ghoulish comic books and graphic novels, some of them starring familiar heroic characters in creepy situations. The legend of Dracula is explored and, nine decades after her film debut, the Bride of Frankenstein gets an in-depth origin story. Marvel Entertainment is introducing a new line of horror comics: Midnight Marvel. The first three titles are debuting at midnight on Wednesday. To encourage fans to try them, they are the only new comics out from Marvel this week. Dig in, True Believers!
Midnight Marvel
In Midnight Fantastic Four No. 1, by Benjamin Percy and Kev Walker, Reed Richards is familiar: so obsessed with his scientific experiments that everything else suffers. The rest of the usual characters are different. Susan Storm is a corporate mogul, not an aspiring actress; Ben Grimm is her bodyguard, not a test pilot; and her happy-go-lucky brother, Johnny, has been hurt in an accident. They unite because of a menace in outer space, which in the past has instilled them with superpowers.
Phillip Kennedy Johnson and ScieTronc take Spidey’s familiar slogan about ability and responsibility and corrupt it to “power makes monsters” in Midnight Spider-Man No. 1. The comic instills a feeling of impending doom: Will something dampen Peter Parker’s glow? What will he become? Finally, in Midnight X-Men No. 1, Jonathan Hickman and Matteo Della Fonte depict a battle between mutants, vampires and mutant vampires, with civilians in the crossfire. The X-Men are used to being hated and feared, so they lend themselves well to this bleaker lens. (Marvel Entertainment. Available on Wednesday.)
Haunted Comic Club
This graphic novel, by Josh Tierney and Caitlin Soliman, is aimed at readers ages 8 to 12 and accomplishes a lot with its characters in 240 pages. The action is set at the Tween Zone, an after-school club. There, Will, who is struggling to fit in socially, meets Anita, who is mourning her grandmother. They join forces to investigate the legendary ghost of a teenage counselor haunting the club, and they create their own comic book based on what they learn. Their friendship helps them through a rough time in their lives. The book includes a couple of blank pages for readers to experiment with making their own comics. (Oni Press. Available on Wednesday.)
Bleeding Hearts, Vol. 1: Out-Break
Deniz Camp and Stipan Morian have created a sympathetic zombie nicknamed Poke in a world in which mankind has dwindled and the undead rule. Poke wants to be friends with some humans he meets, not hunt them. Another surprise — his heart is suddenly beating again. There is a lot to enjoy here: watching the zombies partake in rituals like celebrating Out-Break, the day the first of the undead emerged, and watching Poke and a little girl named Rabbit have a tea party and try to communicate. (DC. Available Oct. 20.)
Horror Picture Book
VIZ Media is bringing Japan’s popular Horror Picture Book series, which began in 2011 and was created by Masao Higashi, a horror and fantasy critic, to the United States. The series pairs renowned authors and illustrators on eerie picture books with spare prose and detailed drawings. Three books will be published this month: Horror Picture Book: Is It There or Not, by Natsuhiko Kyogoku and Naoko Machida, in which a child worries about something hiding in the rafters of his home; Horror Picture Book: Looking at Me, by Soshichi Tonari and Junji Ito, about a boy haunted by faces everywhere he turns, both on Oct. 20; and Horror Picture Book: A Bad Book, by Miyuki Miyabe and Hisanori Yoshida, about a book trying to seduce its reader down a nefarious path, available on Oct. 27. (VIZ Media.)
Dracula, Book Three: The Count
This is the penultimate installment of Matt Wagner and Kelley Jones’s retelling of the story of Dracula, told from his point of view. The first book focused on the title character’s seduction to the dark arts by Satan, while the second examined the women Dracula cursed with immortality: Their bloodlust and boredom made him sometimes rue his decisions. Here the count brings his reign of terror to Victorian London. Some of the city’s residents make interesting observations. One character remarks, upon meeting Dracula, “That was like shaking hands with an icicle! And his breath could knock an elephant dead!” (Dark Horse Comics. Available Oct. 20.)
Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives
This four-issue series by Kelly Thompson and Mattia De Iulis tells the story of the Bride of Frankenstein, based on the 1935 horror film. The first issue sets up the Bride’s escape from the castle where she was created and how she must learn how to live in a world filled with dangers. As she puts it: “Man bad. Fire bad. River bad. Animal bad.” Things get more complicated when a man searching for his wife recognizes the Bride’s face. As the story unfolds, readers and the Bride will learn about the women who make up her patchwork body. (Skybound. Available Oct. 27.)
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