Jill and the Killers

Olivia Cuartero-Briggs, Roberta Ingranata. Oni Press. (136p) ISBN: 9781637155134
Jill and the Killers

Jill and the Killers

I’ve really been enjoying all the graphic novels I’ve read this year and Oni Press has really been on form so had to ask for this as soon as I saw it.

Jills mum is a detective in a small town and she’s gone missing and Jill has been away from her friends for a year and pushed them away and now is trying to get all that back.

Unfortunately a package arrives that Jill thinks is for her as she signed up for a murder mystery package to be one of the group, but it’s not quite the package they were expecting and this takes them down a rabbit hole of a real unsolved murder as the package was meant for Jill’s mum.

Quite a hilarious bit about not understanding the language being used by her peers from being away for a year in there.

Full of twists and turns, red herrings, false trails, and really well observed behaviour in the friendship group. Secrets and regrets fill this book from start to finish.

This is all magnificently supported by a very dynamic and colourful art style, making the world that the story is set in all the more believable.

Looking forward to this world continuing, just wait for the last panel 😉

I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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Tales from the Gas Station Volume 1

Jack Townsend. Jack Townsend. (285p) ISBN: 9781732827837
Tales from the Gas Station Vol.1

Tales from the Gas Station Vol.1

I’ve had Kindle Unlimited for a while now but mainly use it for the savings it gives me on my monthly magazines, this is the first book I’ve had using the offer.

“Working at a dead-end retail job in the middle of nowhere can be hard. The long hours. The helpless customers. The enormous eldritch horror living deep below the building…”

One of my colleagues is a huge horror fan and had just got in all of these and I was hooked from her description and just had to give them a try and was really pleased to find it on Kindle Unlimited which meant I could read all or as little of it as I enjoyed.

Well to say I enjoyed this a lot would be an understatement and also a bit too straighforward. This book is weird, not a dodgy Tory kind of weird, but a where the hell is this going kind of weird?

Jack works as the only full-time cashier at a gas station on the outskirts of a town that makes Eerie Indiana look like Walton’s Mountain.

Oh and Jack is incapable of sleeping and is on a countdown to his death, but at least all this weird stuff that is happening should keep him entertained if he wasn’t so insistent in filing it all away in his head as ‘a forget and don’t ask any questions kind of thing’.

There is so much going on here that at times you find yourself wondering if it will ever all connect up…

Well worth a read, keeps you hooked throughout, and funny and weird is always a winner for me. I’ve already got Volume 2 lined up to read soon. I’ve also gone down this rabbit hole of creepypasta books! I may not be able to return…


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Supernatural Creatures

DK. (192p) ISBN: 9780241656938
Supernatural Creatures

Supernatural Creatures

This was such a highlight of a not so great week, opening an unexpected parcel and finding this sumptuous hardback from DK in (I’d forgotten I’d asked for it!)

When I opened it I wasn’t disappointed as each page (double page spread) talked about different mythical beings from around the world. Each entry was accompanied by gorgeous illustrations that really make this book stand out.

I’d read a book earlier this year about supernatural beings from around the world that made out that none of these creatures existed before a person from the colonising nation(s) had seen the creature and that was so wrong and racist. This book acknowledges the cultural and historic background of the myths and creatures that are included.

The information in the book is firmly aimed at children but is so well thought out that it would cover a large age range and even be a great primer for older people who get a new interest in myths and legends.

Set out in chapters that pull the various creatures into a loose classification, it makes it easier if you’re looking for something that you know of, but it also helps show similarities in myth from different timesand cultures.

Thoroughly enjoyed this read, lots of fun information presented in a beautiful format, well worth it for any youngster who is into mythology.

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The Story of Art Without Men

Katy Hessel. Cornerstone. (576p) ISBN: 9781529156096
The Story of Art Without Men

The Story of Art Without Men

I’ve got the lovely slip case version of this since it came out, and have always meant to read it through, but never quite got around to it.

Since I read Noclin and Greer, and other second wave feminists art historians during my Art History degree and have continued to explore art through a feminist and Marxist lens since.

What Katy Hessel has done her is to build on the work of these authors from the 70s and onward to produce a review of artists taking in different periods and styles.

Rather than comparing to their male contemporaries they are discussed as artists in their own right and how they progressed the work and visibility of women in the art spaces of the world.

Each artist gets such a small section that at times you feel that you are screeching thorough art history at breakneck speed, but what it did was give me names and periods to explore further as a good survey should.

This was a great book in hardback but it is an essential book in paperback for those who need to see a well researched and developed survey of women artists throughout the world.


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Of Cattle and Men

Ana Paula Maia, Zoë Perry (trans). Charco Press. (99p) ISBN: 9781913867492
Of Cattle and Men

Of Cattle and Men

It’s August so that means it’s Women in Translation month, and this is the first of a few Charco Press books I aim to read this month.

It’s pretty much a given that anything that comes with a Charco Press label is going to be good, never had a bad one yet and this was no exception.

Set in an abattoir in rural Brazil where the river is so contaminated with blood that it turns red and salty and the air is heavy with repressed emotions and madness.

The main character we follow is Edgar Wilson, a stun operator at the abattoir, a man who is used to death and killing and takes all in his stride. Edgar knows he is damned and at times this book feels like he’s living through his damnation on earth. Edgar takes care in all he does, notices all that is going on around him and is calm at all points.

As we read on the descent into madness and chaos grows, with the cattle and men mirroring states and often indistinguishable. There is a very honest look into the meat industry and Edgar is exceptionally honest about it and his part in it.

That feeling of damnation whilst on earth and Man’s domination over nature has really strong old-fashioned Catholic vibes to it, as I said before Edgar knows he’s damned and has accepted this as his place as no matter how much forgiveness he received it wouldn’t be enough to wash away the stains on his soul.

Dark and claustrophobic in its relentlessness and closeness of space, the heaviness of the constant blood and fetidness of the miasma of death that surround everything and everyone.

A worthy winner of the Republic of Consciousness prize 2024 as if continues a tradition of the exploration of the dark side of humanity and our relationships with nature and our descent into those depths without shying away from the blood and shit that comes with it.


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Invasive

Cullen Bunn, Jesus Hervas, Federico Sabbatini. Oni Press. (128p) ISBN: 9781637154984
Invasive

Invasive

Had a good roll of horror graphic novels from Oni Press this year and Invasive keeps this run going.

It was the cover of this that initially drew me to it as it is so striking, as is that art throughout the work. Dark and visceral, lending a great deal of weight to the story, a lot of the work is in shadow and the horror is caught in glimpses for the most part.

This was a new direction for me though as I’m not usually a fan of body horror, far more comfortable with cosmic and psychological horror.

A downward spiral into a world of mutilation and surgery, self harm and elective changes, but in this bloodied town we have something even more sinister going on.

Following a mother and a detective ‘on leave’ as they try to get to the bottom of the more sinister side of this world of blades and blood, both with personal reasons to try to find out the truth. For the most part this really worked, especially the weird gas masked surgeons.

Pay off for the whole story was a bit unexpected but still worth the read.

I received this from NetGalley and Oni Press in exchange for an honest review.


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