Graphic Content #3
Welcome back to Haunted MTL’s ongoing horror comic review feature, Graphic Content. In our third installment, we’ll be keeping up with John Constantine: Hellblazer, Killadelphia, and Sink.
We’re always on the lookout for new titles to cover, so leave your suggestions in the comments.
John Constantine: Hellblazer #5
This issue we continue to spend time with John’s current generation of characters while also dipping back into the past. For fans of Vertigo’s run, a familiar set of names should prove exciting. It has been fun to see the new-world magic butt up against John’s old-world magic. Even back then, however, John was a rebel, so his positionality in the magic world allows him to bridge a gap and highlight what seems to be the idiosyncrasies of both eras in a fun way.
John’s old Vertigo-era contact, Clarice Sackville, pops up to let John know about something key, a prophecy of sorts: the final death of John Constantine is approaching. Particularly entertaining is Clarice playing on John’s ego with expertise. As for Map’s fate, we’ll need to stick around for more information.
Also enjoyable? John’s frustration with Tommy Willowtree. What is especially fun is the polyamorous representation in the book with John, not a stranger from sampling carnal delights from anywhere he can take them, even a bit shocked by Willowtree’s more modern concept of relationships.
What has been most fun about this current arc is a sense of growth in John. When it comes to comics from “the Big Two” progression in characterization is often something that is temporary at best, and non-existent at worst. With John Constantine: Hellblazer, we’ve managed to see John grow in significant ways, and this issue may be the most substantial example of that with him putting aside his own crap and supporting someone else that is not an immediate benefit to himself.
This is, unfortunately, the last issue with Matías Bergara on art duty. His style may not be what one immediately thinks of for Hellblazer, but I appreciate the look and it worked perfectly well for what the story was. It wasn’t necessarily that this arc, “Scrubbing Up” was a light sort of story, but it was certainly a bit more whimsical than what one may expect. Bergara’s work was solid and he is definitely in a short-list of artists I would love to see on the book again.
Five issues into Hellblazer and I am still very much looking forward to each and every installment.
(5 / 5)
John Constantine: Hellblazer #5 was written by Simon Spurrier, illustrated by Matías Bergara, and colored by Jordie Bellaire.
Note: As of this installment of Graphic Content, John Constantine: Hellblazer #5 does not seem to be listed on DC’s website.
Killadelphia #6
We conclude the first arc of Killadelphia with this sixth issue, “Sins of the Father Part VI, For God and Country.” Does one of my favorite horror comics around stick the landing?
Overall, yes it does. This issue does a great job of presenting a level of finality while leaving the series open to move forward, as one would hope. Yet, I have my quibbles, but it is fairly minor stuff. My main concern is the vampiric “battle” that wraps up Adams, John Sr., and Tevin’s plotlines. I’m not really a fan of big, flashy vampiric powers and while I think Killadelphia as a whole presented some great vampires, I am not the biggest fan of what feels like a DragonBall Z kind of beam combat. It just doesn’t feel appropriate for the tone of the book.
Also, having the complete volume, I can safely say that I wish the series was a little less compressed. Specifically, I think two more issues might have fixed some overall pacing that I see going on now with the entirety of the volume available. This is all hindsight, of course.
What I am intrigued by most regarding this issue, though, is where it leaves the series going forward. Two particularly key figures seem to be gone, now, and while I am concerned about their absence, I am also intrigued by the potential in the shakeup of the world. Particularly given the rather public appearance of the vampires as the book progressed. This has the chance to really alter the landscape of the book and Philadelphia itself. Overall, as a first volume, it is very satisfying and I am very much eager to read volume two.
From what I have gathered, Jason Shawn Alexander will be continuing art duties going into volume two, and I am highly pleased by that. I’ve written quite a lot about Rodney Barnes’ storytelling here, but Jason Shawn Alexander’s artwork is a pretty perfect vehicle for what Barnes is doing. In one of my first reviews of the series I spoke about a level of grittiness to the artwork, and the series has not only kept that consistent but also refined it. This is a great looking book, and volume two should maintain that trend.
I also should mention the great coloring choices by Luis Nct. The palette is very subtle with a heavy emphasis on reds, as one would expect from a vampire book, but the usage of those reds is particularly skillful across the first volume.
It’s going to stink not having Killadelphia to read in my monthly pull from my local comic shop (shout out to Digger’s Comics!) but I am glad there will be more in the near future. As a whole, I think the first volume stands out as one of the best vampire comics I have ever read, despite some minor issues I had here and there.
(4 / 5)
Killadelphia #6 was written by Rodney Barnes, illustrated by Jason Shawn Alexander, and colored by Luis Nct.
Sink #2
I enjoyed how utterly messed up the first issue of Sink was to keep reading it. Sink #2, “The Door at the End,” is more of the same, so your own mileage may vary if you would be down for it. For someone like me, it is a perfectly fun comic. I am still having a little trouble with some of the Glasgowisms present, but we can chalk that up to my being an ignorant American.
The series, at least going off of the first two issues, feels anthologized. Different slices of a fucked up, hyper-violent Glasgow. This time around we follow the fallout of a Ménage à trois gone horribly, violently wrong through the perspective of a new character. This new character, Sharon, is a fixer of sorts who hails from Sink Hill, the neighborhood that gives the series its name. She arrives to dispose of a corpse.
Only what was dead doesn’t seem to stay dead in this case. Or does it? What follows is a dance party with an apparently homeless man, a discussion of a really messed up dream, and a surprisingly effective fake-out.
It’s all very moody stuff but there is a certain catharsis in that. Sink isn’t a feel-good story and among the selections in this installment of Graphic Content it has the distinct vibe of feeling hopeless, in a way. That’s not a bad thing though. Sink seems to be a series of feel bad stories but that is not meant to disparage what is going on in them as the stories are very much rooted in exploring trauma… just violently. John Lees seems to be looking at a very damaged place that just seems to try to sort that damage by inflicting more damage and it’s a good read. Very sad, but good.
Alex Cormack’s art is well suited to this type of storytelling. It’s a broader, cartoonier style than Jason Shawn Alexander’s work in Killadelphia, but it has the same sort of overall grunginess. Sink is a rough read about a rough place, and the visuals are just as rough. It all fits.
Overall, Sink is shaping up to be a fun anthology series. It’s definitely made for an interesting portrait of Sink Hill over the course of two issues, and it makes one wonder what other stories lurk in that seedy, violent neighborhood.
(4.5 / 5)
Sink #2 was written by John Lees and illustrated and colored by Alex Cormack.
With Killadelphia on a break, looking forward to a new title entering the mix with Graphic Content #4.
Agree or disagree with the reviews? Have a title you think I should cover? Let us know in the comments.
Published in January 2025, Virginia Feito’s second book, Victorian Psycho, is… hard to categorize. Much like Feito’s first book, Mrs March (which I also highly recommend), Feito has created a main character that is paranoid, violent and utterly charming. Victorian Psycho might be any classic Victorian novel about a governess. Miss Notty, entering her new place of employment and getting to know the Pound family and their two children, Andrew and Drusilla. That is if you ignore the psychopathic thoughts that keep entering Miss Notty’s head.
- SOON TO BE A FEATURE FILM FROM A24 STARRING MARGARET QUALLEY AND THOMASIN MCKENZIE”This book will be the bloody belle of the 2025 literary ball
- ” (Oprah Daily)Most Anticipated Books of 2025: Vulture, Oprah Daily, Polygon, Reader’s Digest, Lit Hub, CrimeReads, The Stacks, LibraryReads, PasteBest Books of the Month: Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Goodreads, Gizmodo, Book Riot, The A
- V
Last update on 2025-03-03 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
The Plot.
When we begin Victorian Psycho, we meet Winifred Knotty, a young woman travelling to Ensor House through the English Grim Wolds in what feels like the Victorian era (the year is never actually pinpointed.) The reader is provided with a countdown of ‘three months till Christmas’ and simply told that “in three months everyone in this house will be dead.”
Miss Notty is to be the new Governess to the two Pound children. As she settles into her new position, she appears to be good at her job. She ensures that the children are fed, tucks them in at night, tells bedtime stories and provides them with intellectual conversation. She only jokes about eating children and really has no idea where that missing maid has disappeared to.
Highlights.
Victorian Psycho is written as a chaotic interior monologue, punctuated with intermittent dialogue as Miss Notty interacts with other characters, or eavesdrops on them from the hallway. The reader is completely immersed in this confused, violent mind, despite this, it is impossible not to like Miss Notty. I think it might be due to her witty intelligence and her keen ability to dismantle the other character’s social pretenses. Whatever it is, Feito has done a marvelous job of characterization on Miss Notty.
As an extra highlight I need to mention the way Feito has named her characters using a very Dickensian method of using words that describe their personalities. To name a few; Miss Notty, whose mind seems to be in knots, Mr. And Mrs. Fancy, who are very posh and the name that took the cake for me was the baby, called William Ebenezer Poncy Fancey, but don’t worry, you won’t have to read that name too often as he does not last long in Miss. Notty’s care.
Drawbacks.
There is a lot of confusion in Victorian Psycho, which is in keeping with our point of view main character. However, at some points in the story the confusion was so thick that I had to stop reading and try to untangle the events I had just read. If you are a reader who enjoys a clear and concise plot and action, this one is probably not for you. While you are in Notty’s head suffice it to say you have to roll with the unconnected tangents and strange metaphors, if you’re not willing to do this it would be best to jump ship.
The Final Take.
This is a perfectly perverse take on a Victorian gothic. Full to the brim with brutal horror and visceral imagery, balanced out with tongue in cheek sarcasm. Victorian Psycho flips the script on the traditional ‘women running away from houses’ theme of the gothic. Instead, we have a woman coming in and, well… you’ll have to read the book to see.
(5 / 5)
As a disclaimer, this is a review of The House of My Mother from a critical perspective. I will not be discussing my opinions of the legal case against Ruby Franke and Jody Hildebrandt. I will be discussing the merits of the book as a work of true crime alone.
In 2015, Ruby Franke started a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers. In August of 2023, Franke and her business associate Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested for, and later plead guilty to, charges of aggravated child abuse. And in January of this year, Shari Franke told her story in The House of My Mother.
The story
The House of My Mother is the true story of Shari Franke, the oldest child of one of the most famous family vlogger families.
As a child, Shari came to the conclusion that her mother didn’t like her. Soon, she began to fear her mother’s anger.
Things got significantly worse when Ruby started their family vlog. All of the families most intimate moments were splashed across the internet for anyone to watch. This became a living nightmare for Shari.
Of course, that was only the start of the family nightmare. Because Ruby was about to meet someone who would reinforce all of the darkest parts of herself.
Eventually Shari manages to escape her home. But her younger siblings were still in her mother’s clutches. She had to save them, and her father, from the monster her mother had become.
What worked
Through the book, Shari only ever mentions the name of one of her siblings, Chad. This is because Chad is the only of her siblings that is an adult at the time of the publication.
There are children involved in this story. Children who’s lives and privacy have already been damaged. Shari didn’t want to do that to them again, and neither do I.
It probably won’t surprise you that this book is full of upsetting details. But not in the way you might imagine.
Nowhere in this book will you find gory details about the abuse the Franke kids suffered. And I consider that a good thing. Those sort of details are all fun and games when we’re talking fiction. When it’s real kids who are really living with the damage, it’s not a good time.
What you’ll find instead is a slew of more emotionally devastating moments. One that stuck with me is when Ruby’s mother gives her a pair of silk pajamas as a gift after Ruby gave birth to one of her babies. Shari asks Ruby if she’d bring her silk pajamas when she had a baby. Ruby responds that yes, when Shari becomes a mother they can be friends.
What a lovely way to make a little girl feel like she’s not worth anything unless she reproduces. And, if she does decide to have children, who is going to bring her silk pajamas?
- From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing
- Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival
- Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2
Last update on 2025-03-02 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
In the end, this isn’t a story about ghosts or demons. It’s not about a serial killer waiting on a playground or in the attic of an unsuspecting family. Instead, this is a story about things that really keep us up at night. It’s the story of a woman so obsessed with perfection that she drove away her eldest daughter. The story of a young woman who’s forced to watch from afar as her beloved brothers and sisters are terrorized and abandoned. These are the sorts of things that really keep us up at night. These are the real nightmares.
More than that, though, The House of My Mother is a story of survival. It’s about a family that was ripped apart and somehow managed to stitch itself back together again. It’s about a brave young woman who managed to keep herself safe and sane in the face of a nightmare. If you haven’t read it yet, I can’t recommend it enough.
For more like this, check out my review of Shiny Happy People.
(5 / 5)
Boreal: an Anthology of Taiga Horror is a collection of twenty-two haunting tales that dwell in the deepest darkest woods and frozen wastelands, edited by Katherine Silva and including Haunted MTL’s very own Daphne Fauber. Each story has even been gifted with its very own poster, hinting at the horrors to be found within it, bestowing a beautiful visual collection as well.
The tales are varied and touch upon the environment in new and different ways, each hearkening to a sort of epiphany or raised awareness. These stories exude both dread and wonder at the smallness of our human existence in contrast to the sacred world we have isolated from, sheltering ourselves in our comfortable houses with centralized heat and everything we could possibly need or want at the ready. The taiga becomes a sanctuary outside of our own dulled awarenesses. It is a holy place imbued with powers beyond mortal human reach, a wilderness that threatens to swallow us – both whole and bit by bit, simultaneously.
The protagonists enter into this realm through ritual, superstition, longing, stubbornness, and their own hubris – yearning to survive its dangers, and to make their own marks upon it. The starkness of their surroundings harbors delicate moments that would be all too easily missed if not deliberately sought or pointed out. The softness of fur, the dappled sunlight shining through trees, the hazy clouds of breath forming in crisp air, the brittleness of bleached bone… those quiet experiences that beg to be forgotten, to lay safely sleeping just below the frozen surface, awaiting spring.
There are those who followed in the footsteps of their predecessors, seeking to escape the constraints of their parent’s and elders’ indoctrination, traditions, madness, and abuse, yearning to find their own way despite also being inextricably bound to their own pasts. There are those who just wanted to go for a walk in the woods, and remained forever changed by what they experienced. There are those who wished to impose their will upon the wilderness, their order falling to disarray, unable to make lasting impact. There are those who sought to leave behind the world of mankind, looking for oneness in the natural order of things through isolation, leaving a bit of themselves behind after being consumed by the terrors they encountered. There are those who truly found communion with the woods, became one with its wildness, and invited its spirit into their hearts to find peace, even at cost of their own lives. And then, there are the spirits themselves…
(3 / 5)
All in all, I give Boreal: an Anthology of Taiga Horror 3.0 Cthulhus. I love existential angst so I found it to be an enjoyable read, and I appreciated the myriad manners in which the biome was explored. But there were points in which I found myself struggling to follow along, as if the words were swept up into their own wilds in ways that alienated myself as reader, as if my mere voyeurism into this otherworldly place was not enough to comprehend the subtle deviations in storytelling mannerisms fully. I suppose in some sense this seems appropriate, but at the same time, it left me feeling a bit unfulfilled, as if I had missed a spiritual connection that should have resonated more deeply.
- English (Publication Language)
- 248 Pages – 02/25/2025 (Publication Date) – Strange Wilds Press (Publisher)
Last update on 2025-01-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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