A broken family moving into a new neighborhood, beset by horrific forces, and forced to come together to fight back is pretty much a genre of its own when it comes to horror. So credit The Neighborhood from BOOM! Studios for feeling fresh and upsetting in a whole new way.
Written by Jude Ellison S. Doyle with art by Letizia Cardonici, the five-issue series (also collected in a trade) focuses on the Gowdie family, who move to a small town in the mountains for reasons that unfold over the course of the book. Along with the parents, Janet and Oliver, there are two daughters: Casey, who is on the cusp of adulthood, and Isobel, a precocious two-year-old. There’s also something lurking in the soil around their house that is changing them in intrinsic ways.
What makes this book so good is that it presents that familiar setup, and thanks to Cardonici’s superb, exaggerated art honed on hit series like House of Slaughter, presents itself in increasingly terrifying ways. However, there’s a lot more going on here than mere jump-scares. And as the secrets Janet and Oliver are holding start to come to light, the book ends up being much more heartfelt and poignant than you might expect.
If you’re a fan of one of our other picks this month, Wytches, and are looking for what to pick up next, The Neighbors is it. Or if you’re into family horror that mixes in timely discussions in a way that doesn’t feel moralizing, this is worth the pick-up, too. Just don’t read it with the lights off*.
*Because you can’t read things with the lights off, idiot.
It’s spooky season, and you know what that means: time to curl up with a comic book or graphic novel that will scare your socks off. With that in mind, we’re posting a new horror book to check out every day of October, for our 31 Days Of Halloween Comics. Awoooo! Looking for the rest of our picks? Check them out on the Halloween tag.