It feels like spooky season arrives earlier and earlier each year (at least, according to the displays at the grocery store) but I generally have the restraint to wait until it’s at least October. But I’ve got so many comics about monsters and ghosts and other spooky subjects that I’ll need two weeks to cover them all! So here’s the first batch…
Fitz and Cleo Get Creative
Fitz and Cleo Put a Party on It written by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrated by Heather Fox
Get Creative is the second book in the Fitz and Cleo series, featuring two kid ghosts having fun with some of their other monster friends. These are the least scary books of the bunch—the monsters are also pretty cute kids. They’re the comic book equivalent of an easy reader chapter book, divided into short sections. While each chapter has its own title and storyline, the overarching theme in this one is about creativity, from imagining yourself in an exciting story to dealing with writer’s block and procrastination to trying to build a machine that makes art. Several of the chapters connect for a longer story about Fitz and Cleo making a movie with their friends.
Put a Party on It is the third book in the series, and it’s all about parties. It begins with Cleo being bored and needing a little more pizzazz, so the two ghosts form the “Party Squad” and start having all sorts of parties—a combined holiday party, a birthday party for their cat, Mister Boo, a dance party in the rain, and more. The Fitz and Cleo series are cute selections for beginning readers who want to get into the Halloween theme without the frights.
Misfit Mansion by Kay Davault
Sliding up the spookiness scale a notch, Misfit Mansion features a bunch of “horrors”—a term that seems to apply to any number of mythical creatures, from kelpies to trolls to fairies to unicorns. They all live together in a magically sealed house, where a man named Mr. Halloway hopes to keep them safe from paranormal hunters, and warns them that humans are dangerous. But when Iris—an unidentified sort of monster—sees the ads for the fall festival at Dead End Springs, she longs to get out and join in the fun. Then a kid named Mathias manages to break the seal on the house, and Iris and the others finally get their chance to see the outside world.
What they encounter is both the good and the bad—most of the humans (who think the horrors just have elaborate costumes) welcome the newcomers, but Mathias sees them for what they truly are and wants to finally show the town that he’s been right about the paranormal threats all along. In the meantime, Iris also starts to find some answers to her own origins, and discovers a secret that Mr. Halloway has been hiding from them all.
This one does get a little scarier in some places, but even then most of the horrors are still pretty cute. (As a specific warning, there is one who is a doll that came to life, and makes other creepy toys—but she turns out to be not so bad.) The story is about misplaced fears and found family, and ultimately has a happy ending for almost everyone.
Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke
Milo’s family is still getting unpacked in their new house, when he is sent to the basement to find his baby sister’s missing sock in the laundry. The basement is dark and a little creepy, and then a rat-like creature snatches the sock and runs off … leading Milo to discover new doorways and passages that lead into deeper and deeper chambers, and encountering some truly strange beings in the depths. Milo’s journey starts off with the sort of plausible (a hidden moonshine still with old newspapers about prohibition) and gets more and more outlandish (huge caverns with cave paintings and underground lakes) as he chases after the sock.
While there are some scary-looking monsters, they always have Hatke’s signature touch of silliness to them as well, and a lot of the things that initially frighten Milo actually turn out to be harmless or even helpful. The spookiest part may simply be the unknown—the gloomy darkness that Milo’s flashlight and candles barely illuminate. Ultimately Milo returns triumphant, having faced his fears and made some new friends.
Snot Goblins and Other Tasteless Tales written by Rob Kutner, illustrated by David DeGrand
Vampires, trolls, mummies … and snot? This book is more ghastly than ghostly, incorporating some gross-out humor with more traditional monster tales. The framing story is that Big Mouth consumes a bunch of horrible stories and then spits them back out at you, mashed up in (usually) disgusting ways. There’s a kid who plays sick to stay home from school but then unleashes the titular snot goblins on the world. There’s a vampire who comes to the New World, hoping to find a way of life that doesn’t involve biting people, and makes some interesting alliances. There are some underground trolls who meet some internet trolls. There are some threads that connect the stories, too, even though they seem disconnected at first. I’m not the biggest fan of poop jokes and over-the-top barfing myself, but if you’ve got a kid who loves bodily fluids, this might be a good fit!
Ghost Book by Remy Lai
Ghost Book incorporates some traditional Asian haunts and traditions. The story takes place during Hungry Ghost Month, when ghosts are allowed to wander freely among the living. July Chen can see ghosts, and when she sees a hungry ghost trying to eat a boy ghost, she rescues him, which sets off a chain of events and leads July to learn more about herself. Twelve years ago, she was supposed to die on the day she was born, but for some reason she didn’t—and her fate is somehow linked to that of her new friend William, who seems to be hovering on the border between life and death.
There are some creepy ghosts here—the hungry ghosts in particular are somewhat gruesome—but there are also some underworld figures who are played for laughs. Oxhead and Horseface, who are supposed to escort the dead to the Underworld, are bumbling figures who follow their stomachs more than their brains. William is accompanied by Floof, a cute little puffball ghost with a bushy tail. Figuring out the story of what happened, and why July’s dad acts so strangely about ghosts, was a fun mystery, and there’s a nice mix of action scenes and quiet scenes that allow for the drama to build.
The Dire Days of Willoweep Manor written by Shaenon K. Garrity, illustrated by Christopher Baldwin
Okay, this one isn’t exactly a Halloweeny tale, but it’s okay because it’s not quite October anyway. There are ghosts, though, and a malevolent being, and a big gloomy manor!
Haley loves reading gothic romance novels, perhaps to excess, and she’s looking forward to getting home to read some more when she sees a young man drowning in the river. She dives in to save him, but when she reaches the shore, everything has changed. She finds herself at Willowweep Manor, complete with a weird housekeeper and three brothers. The eldest is stoic and serious, the middle is conflicted but somewhat charming, and the youngest is ridiculous and impulsive. Oh, and it turns out that Haley is the only one who can see and hear the ghost.
Willowweep is actually a pocket universe, one meant to protect our world, but there’s evil invading, manifesting as the Bile, a green slime that consumes everything. Haley has to figure out how to be a heroine, while working within the weird rules of this universe that make everything into a gothic romance. It’s pretty goofy and there’s a lot of slapstick humor in it, and it’s an entertaining read.
Silver: Of Hunters and Prey (Book 2) by Stephan Franck
I read the first Silver book last year and have been looking forward to the rest of the story. It’s a heist story, but set in the 1930s and mashed-up with Dracula. Jim Finnigan, after botching his “one last score,” has stumbled upon a diary by one Jonathan Harker and plans to steal a mountain of silver from a castle full of vampires. He’s got his team, including the vampire-slaying granddaughter of Van Helsing, a young Chinese boy who can see the future, a has-been actor, an explosives expert, and he has a plan. Sort of.
At the start of the second volume, we get to see everything fall apart … or do we? As with the best heist stories, there are double-crosses and triple-crosses, unexpected snags that are actually part of the plan, and then personal agendas interfering with the plan, and so on, so you’re never entirely sure until the end whether Jim is actually a step ahead of everyone. It’s an action-packed story, rendered in stark black and white, and I really enjoyed this take both on the vampire lore and on pulling off the impossible heist.
My Current Stack
I’ve got more creepy comics coming, so stay tuned next week for another batch as we get into October! I’ve also started reading Number Go Up by Zeke Faux, which chronicles the “rise and fall of cryptocurrency” and while it’s a little sensationalized and oversimplified in parts, it’s also fascinating and eye-opening.
Disclosure: I received review copies of the comics in this column. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent booksellers!
