Bringing comic creators, writers, artists and the like is no easy feat. It takes a certain amount of drive to bring so many different people together and create something truly special. In the true spirit of Halloween, we have Paroxysm, an anthology horror with unsettling imagery and some spine tingling stories. However, with the so many different forms of media we’re given, this book feels very unbalanced with almost all attention being drawn to the comic “The Black Rabbit”.
One of the larger drawbacks is most of the individual art is clumped together rather than allowing them to be segues from larger piece to larger piece. Instead, this anthology is arranged from shortest story to longest. Because of this, readers will undoubtedly feel as though the longer pieces drag on.
The highlight of this collection is without question “Ribbon Town” by Sarah Van Rose. It’s a short yet chilling tale about what can be lurking in the wilderness. There’s an uncomfortable feeling of isolation and the use of shadows expertly creeps in on the reader. This story feels like something you would share around the campfire, leaving just enough ambiguity to send your imagination souring afterwards. If more of the anthology had the tone and pacing of this short, this collection would be immensely better.
“Dark Halls” offers a unique concept as we follow the protagonist investigating an abandoned building for the sake of uncovering the truth behind a suspecting cover-up. The catch: we only learn pieces of this story through journal entries as he explores the building. Again, this is an entertaining idea to have readers learn about a person and story through the eyes of journal entries but for something that is meant to be scary the concept can be a bit jarring. Having to read the entries takes a bit of the suspense away, not to mention, we wonder why he is bothering to write these things down in the first place. Found footage stories are very hard to execute in a form of media that doesn’t have audio of some kind but “Dark Halls” makes a valiant effort.
Unfortunately, the weakest part of this collection is the story that takes up half of the overall page length. While “The Black Rabbit” has its interesting moments, it feels too long compared to the other stories and would probably be better as a simple one-shot comic that has all the attention on itself rather than being forced to share the spotlight. The story follows an interrogation of a man who has been housing a killer vampire. As mentioned before, there are some intriguing ideas this comic presents particularly in regards to its correlation with human trafficking. However, at the same time, it feels as though the fact the protagonist himself has committed atrocious acts is brushed over very lightly. The stakes don’t feel nearly as high as they should be and the overall story suffers for it.
If you want to get into the Halloween spirit, this is still definitely something readers will enjoy so long as you they read it out of order. You can also discover more about the anthology’s creation via our interview with its editor Natalia Lopes.
You can contribute to Paroxysm through their Kickstarter! If you’ve managed to contribute to this anthology, let us know in the comments below or send us a Tweet!Â
