Lock your doors and gather close . . . if you dare! Once a rising TV journalist, Jerri Bartman has returned to her small Midwest hometown station. Demoted to hosting the nightly Creature Feature, Jerri's professional humiliation is eclipsed by the discovery that her new job comes with a secret, supernatural duty. Her missing predecessor, Count Crowley, was one of the last "Appointed" hunters of monsters. Yes. Monsters. They're real and they're hell bent on controlling the news and information consumed by humans. Everything we've ever been taught about monsters is a lie and Jerri's only possible advisor is a senile male chauvinist. It's 1983 and the outlook for humanity is getting . . . gnarly and their only hope is an alcoholic, acerbic horror host from Missouri. David Dastmalchian's authorial comics debut with artist Lukas Ketner--this terrifying trade collects issues #1-#4 of the Dark Horse Comics series Count Crowley: Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter!
The Count Returns! It's been a hell of a week for Jerri Bartman. She lost her job, crashed her car, took the only gig available hosting the midnight monster show, and . . . oh yeah--dismembered a zombie. No big deal. Now, to protect the people she loves, she's going to have to take a crash course in monster hunting. And quickly--a vengeful vampire just booked a first-class flight into town. "A love letter to 1980s horror kitsch, Count Crowley: Reluctant Monster Hunter #1 is the Lois Lane/Jessica Jones mashup that you didn't know you needed." –Newsarama
Jerri Bartman wishes the weirdest thing about this week was her embarrassing new gig as the host of the Count Crowley Show—but a werewolf, a bloodless giant, and a killer hangover have really made things horrifying. Desperate for help, Jerri turns to the one man who may hold all of the answers. Or he may just be a dementia-ridden, old chauvinist . . . the legendary Vincent Frights!
A terrifying coming-of-age story by master storyteller Gabriel Hardman. A mother and son bound by a shared terror--separated by an implacable alien force! A spaceship that should carry them away from the fear becomes a deathtrap from which escape seems impossible! The Trono colony on LV-871 is under attack. Emergency evacuations are ordered. Twelve-year-old Maxon and his mom face the most terrifying creatures in the galaxy . . . Aliens!
From the Orange Prize–winning author of A Crime in the Neighborhood, Suzanne Berne’s The Dogs of Littlefield is “sublime” (The Chicago Tribune), a suspenseful and hilarious “suburban comedy of manners par excellence” (Kirkus Reviews) that explores the unease behind the manicured lawns of suburban America. Littlefield, Massachusetts, named one of the Twenty Best Places to Live in America, is full of psychologists and college professors, proud of its fine schools, its girls’ soccer teams, its leafy streets, and quaint village center. Yet when sociologist Dr. Clarice Watkins arrived in Littlefield to study the elements of “good quality of life” someone begins poisoning the town’s dogs. Are the poisonings in protest to an off-leash proposal for Baldwin Park—the subject of much town debate—or the sign of a far deeper disorder? “Nothing sucks a reader in like psychological menace, and Suzanne Berne is a master of the craft…. Her scenes are elegantly composed, and even throwaway characters jump off the page” (The New York Times). A wry exploration of the discontent concealed behind the manicured lawns and picket fences of darkest suburbia, The Dogs of Littlefield explodes with “comic exuberance and restrained beauty” (The Boston Globe).
A dynamic and devastating memoir about the cycle of trauma caused by addiction within one family From a child’s-eye view, Travis Dandro recounts growing up with a drug-addicted birth father, alcoholic step-dad, and overwhelmed mother. As a kid, Dandro would temper the everyday tension with flights of fancy, finding refuge in toys and animals and insects rather than in the unpredictable adults around him. He perceptively details the effects of poverty and addiction on a family while maintaining a child’s innocence for as long as he can. King of King Court spans from Travis’s early childhood through his teen years, focusing not only on the obviously abusive actions but also on the daily slights and snubs that further strain relations between him and his parents. Alongside his birth father committing crimes and shooting up, King of King Court lingers on scenes of him criticizing Travis and his siblings. Dandro gives equal heft to these anecdotes, emphasizing how damaging even relatively slight traumas can be to a child’s worldview. As Travis matures into young adulthood and begins to understand the forces shaping his father’s toxic behaviors, the story becomes even more nuanced. Travis is empathetic to his father’s own tragic history but unable to escape the cycle of misconduct and reprisals. King of King Court is a revelatory autobiography that examines trauma, addiction, and familial relations in a unique and sensitive way.
Athens lost the war to Crete. Now, they pay tribute to King Minos by sacrificing their best citizens to his unearthly labyrinth. Conspirators believe Theseus can be the hero they need, who can end the mad king’s bloody reign... but no one on this world has ever encountered anything like the savage minotaur. Chris Pasetto, Christian Cantamessa (Red Dead Redemption) and Lukas Ketner (WITCH DOCTOR) reinvent the most fearsome beast in all of mythology with this horrific tale of heroism. Collects KILL THE MINOTAUR #1-6.
Filled with political intrigue, violent magic, and malevolent spirits, the mesmerizing second book in Sarah Beth Durst’s Queens of Renthia epic fantasy trilogy that started with the award-winning The Queen of Blood. Everything has a spirit: the willow tree with leaves that kiss the pond, the stream that feeds the river, the wind that exhales fresh snow . . . And those spirits want to kill you. It’s the first lesson that every Renthian learns. Not long ago, Daleina used her strength and skill to survive those spirits and assume the royal throne. Since then, the new queen has kept the peace and protected the humans of her land. But now for all her power, she is hiding a terrible secret: she is dying. And if she leaves the world before a new heir is ready, the spirits that inhabit her beloved realm will run wild, destroying her cities and slaughtering her people. Naelin is one such person, and she couldn’t be further removed from the Queen—and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Her world is her two children, her husband, and the remote village tucked deep in the forest that is her home, and that’s all she needs. But when Ven, the Queens champion, passes through the village, Naelin’s ambitious husband proudly tells him of his wife’s ability to control spirits—magic that Naelin fervently denies. She knows that if the truth of her abilities is known, it will bring only death and separation from those she loves. But Ven has a single task: to find the best possible candidate to protect the people of Aratay. He did it once when he discovered Daleina, and he’s certain he’s done it again. Yet for all his appeals to duty, Naelin is a mother, and she knows her duty is to her children first and foremost. Only as the Queen’s power begins to wane and the spirits become emboldened—even as ominous rumors trickle down from the north—does she realize that the best way to keep her son and daughter safe is to risk everything. Sarah Beth Durst established a place of dark wonder in The Queen of Blood, and now the stakes are even higher as the threat to the Queen and her people grows both from within and beyond the borders of Aratay in this riveting second novel of the Queens of Renthia series.
For Kacee, a queer Black girl in middle school, everything feels like a struggle. Her parents take out their personal issues on her, classes are a challenge, her crush is clueless about her feelings, and her two best friends are always at odds. When Kacee fails a class as a result of her stress and ends up in summer school, she starts to wonder why she even bothers trying—and ultimately begins to discover her own power to improve the things in her life she can control, and try to let go of what she can’t. From writer Adam P. Knave (The Once and Future Queen) and artist Valentine Barker, with letters by Frank Cvetkovic (Punch-Up), The Airless Year is a story of self-discovery and empowerment about taking control where you can, and learning to let the rest go.
