Five Must-Read Comics This Fall

No. 1: Through the Woods

Credit: Simon & Schuster

What It's About

Through The Woods is a collection of short horror stories by the ever-talented Emily Carroll, who gained no small amount of webcomic cred for her amazing "His Face All Red", a tale of one man's inability to cope with his brother's success leading him to do the unthinkable. The stories in Through the Woods all share the twisted folk tale feeling present in "His Face All Red", making for a read that delves deep into the very essence of what humans are afraid of and shedding light on the fact that humans can be scarier than any demon or monster.

Credit: Simon & Schuster

Why You Should Read It

Obviously when you go into a horror comic, your end goal is to read and see something that will make heart pound and your palms sweat. You want to be afraid to turn the page in fear of what you'll find lurking in the shadows, yet it can be a difficult feeling to obtain for some. A fair amount of popular horror comics tend to be fast-paced gorefests, which can be great in their own way, but for most a severed arm can't produce the feeling desired.

That is why Through the Woods is a book any comic fan should experience. Carroll's art flows slowly off the page like a steady drip of blood-red molasses, making every page feel like it takes hours to experience, which makes the horrific images and psychological terror all the more enjoyable.

The art is certainly the biggest selling point of the book. While not incredibly detailed, Carroll's sense of movement and emotion are incredibly strong in this book. Never once are we confused as to how a character feels or moves, which is incredibly important in a horror book. The simplified look of many stories also makes it that much more frightening when stories like "The Nesting Place" (my personal favorite of this collection) get incredibly detailed. The colors also do their fair share of the heavy lifting in the comic. Carroll's deep blues instil a sense of coldness that cuts to the bone, and the deep reds bring to mind that most precious of bodily fluids.

The slow burn that every story is put on creates a sense of tension and suspense that few pieces of media can capture. The atmosphere of mystery that exists in our folktales and myths is difficult to capture; the inner machinations of our minds, even more so. So when a book comes along that can capture the essence of sitting around a campfire and having an elder tell you a scary story, such that you aren't quite sure whether it is real or not, it's a must read for any comic fan.