96: Halloween Horror Comic Recs! 🎃💀🕸🕷

Summary
In this episode of Comic Dudes hosts Dave and Matt share their favorite horror comics. They explore some of the unique storytelling and artistic styles that define these works, while also sharing personal anecdotes and recommendations for readers. The discussion highlights the emotional impact of these comics, the evolution of beloved characters, and the importance of horror in graphic storytelling. The hosts conclude with a call for listener recommendations and a commitment to continue exploring the genre.

Chapters
00:00 Spooky Season Excitement
03:13 Exploring Horror Comics
06:02 Diving into Nailbiter
09:00 American Vampire Unveiled
11:45 The Thrills of Hack/Slash
15:01 The Walking Dead Phenomenon
20:59 Marvel's Midnight Suns
23:25 Exploring Horror Comics: A New York Perspective
24:51 Reviving the Zombie Genre: A Deep Dive into Revival
28:45 Something is Killing the Children: A Unique Take on Horror
32:46 The Spread: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale
37:22 Killadelphia: Merging History with Horror
40:51 30 Days of Night: Vampires in the Arctic
44:46 The State of Independent Comics: A Look at IDW
45:22 Exploring Stray Dogs: A Unique Horror Comic
49:18 The Legacy of Spawn: A Comic Icon
53:48 Stillwater: A Town Where No One Dies
56:12 Honorable Mentions: A Diverse Range of Horror Comics
01:05:25 Closing Thoughts and Future Recommendations

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Original Music by Alex Productions
Show notes include some AI generated content

Transcript

Dave Is Scared (00:02)
Welcome back to the Comic Dudes, podcast about comic books and comic book related things. My name is Dave with me as always, my esteemed co-host Matt. Matt, how you doing?

Matt - CDWA (00:13)
Doing pretty good, pretty good. It's getting to be spooky season. I'm getting kind of excited.

Dave Is Scared (00:19)
It's indeed. Indeed. We're recording on October 24th, so you could argue that it's deep in the spooky season. We're a week from Halloween.

Matt - CDWA (00:24)
It's true. For some reason, my children, my children are uncharacteristically excited about Halloween. Like, Elena loves Halloween.

Dave Is Scared (00:34)
Let's see free candy.

Matt - CDWA (00:36)
That's a great point. didn't think of that. That's probably, that's probably why they get to run around like vandals and just like they're acting crazy. And yeah, it's a good point. I didn't even think of that. Well played. Well played. We have, we have some generous benefactors on our little cul-de-sac as well too. And our road, like they give out full size, like, like all the time. So yeah, it's a good point. I'm telling them to tell them back on the candy.

Dave Is Scared (00:37)
Every kid loves Halloween for the candy.

Yeah.

I don't think I put anything there, but...

nice. New neighborhood for us this year. I don't know what Halloween is going to be like the, the neighborhood we moved to. it's a, it's a new development, but it's really, really tidy. There's only like probably 40 or 60 houses total in the subdivision and half of those are still being built. So don't, don't think we're going to get many trick or treaters.

Matt - CDWA (01:03)
Mmm.

I'm going to super derail this conversation, but can you get Domino's pizza out there? Can you get Domino's pizza out there? I just remember that your first house, when you like first moved out to Texas, like the pizza person got lost or whatever. And it took like 45 minutes to get a pizza and you like freaked out. I don't know why you ordered a pizza and it took forever. You were tracking it. You had a very in-depth story at the time. Like you were tracking it on the app. Dude just turned around.

Dave Is Scared (01:25)
Do we have what? Yeah, there's one five minutes from our house.

I don't remember that at all.

Matt - CDWA (01:51)
And you called him you You called him made him cancel your order dude cuz it's like like and then they I think it ended up showing up You're like, I'm not paying for this. It's like 45 minutes late I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry It is vividly etched into my mind for some reason I don't know. I'm sorry

Dave Is Scared (01:51)
That's fan, I mean, it sounds like something that I would do. I'm not denying that it happened, I just don't remember it.

That sounds like a real thing. I'm glad you still remember that. I wish I remembered that.

No, don't you shouldn't apologize for that. I'm glad that you still have that memory. I wish I did. I don't know what I don't know what bumped it out and replaced it. Probably some other horrible food experience because they tend to happen to me. Cursed in that way. Much like some of the things we'll be talking about in this episode of the comic dudes. But before we get into that reminder, you can follow us on Twitter. Yes, that's Twitter. I will never call it X.

Matt - CDWA (02:25)
You

Good segue.

Dave Is Scared (02:42)
Our handles are in the description of the episode. You can also follow the podcast on Instagram and TikTok, and you can join our Discord if you'd like to connect with us there and talk about comics, comic book movies, video games and sports, because we talk about all those things in the Discord. And without further ado, since this is going to release on the Monday before Halloween, we're going to talk about our favorite horror comics. Now, these are going to be in no particular order. These are just Dave and Matt's

favorite horror themed comics. And some of them aren't even horror themed, but they still kind of fit into the horror genre. So yeah, we're just gonna, in no particular order, share with you some great horror comics to read. If you're looking to pick up something new this week that you've never read before, you want something different in the horror genre. Most of the stuff's not terribly long, except for like a couple that are surprisingly still going, even that started in the 90s. So some of the stuff can be picked up and read pretty...

Cheap and pretty quick. So without further ado, that's the second time I've said that now. Let's get into it. And I'll kick us off with a comic called Nailbiter by Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson. It takes place in the town of Buckaroo, Oregon. And for whatever reason, this small town in Oregon has been the birthplace of 16 of the worst serial killers the world has ever seen.

And the story of nail biter is that an obsessed FBI profiler goes to to buckaroo to investigate the town. He just wants to know why so many serial killers come from buckaroo, Oregon. And while he's doing this investigation, he goes missing. So now an NSA agent and one of these notorious serial killers who is known as the nail biter killer.

have to work together to find this guy and solve the mystery of where do serial killers come from? I have personally read this through volume four or five. I think it went seven. So it's still on my list of comics that like I haven't finished yet, but I really want to. Some people do complain about Nailbiter and that it is constantly giving you misdirections.

And things happen off panel that are like really important to sort of the the identity or the motivations of our killer that's in in this story. And, you know, I haven't found that to be too terribly difficult or frustrating. I really enjoyed this. I will finish it someday. I don't know when. Maybe we'll read it for the podcast. I don't know. But, yeah, nail biter.

Matt - CDWA (05:38)
You sold. He's. I didn't know he wrote that. Honestly, that title just didn't appeal to me, so I never knew what that book was even about. So like, I'm I'm kind of intrigued now. Now I'm like, that sounds interesting. And I feel like I have PDFs of it somewhere. I feel like it was in one of those digital sales and I have like a humble bundle thing and got all the PDFs for it. So I might have to give that one a try. That sounds super interesting.

Dave Is Scared (05:38)
I love I love Joshua Williams and man, I think he's a fantastic writer.

Nice.

You also might have gotten those PDFs from me back when you could buy something on Comixology and get DRM free PDFs because I own all of Nailbiter. So you might've got that from me.

Matt - CDWA (06:12)
Download it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, either way, I might have to invite them to nail bite or that sounds like a really interesting story. So

Dave Is Scared (06:27)
We got we're one for one. got one person interested in the first comic listed.

Matt - CDWA (06:31)
Well, all right. So I guess I'm up next. I am a, or definitely was in like the 2000s, a big Scott Snyder fan. He could do no wrong in my book. Like his Batman run, I really, really enjoyed. That was kind of like new 52. That was kind of the era when I started really getting serious about comics. But so when Scott Snyder kind of did anything, I tried anything he did. So the one book he did,

was a spin-off book called American Vampire. And I'm not really a horror person. I'm definitely a horror poser. I like the themes of horror stuff, but I'm a baby. Like I've always dabbled in like horror movies, like Friday the 13th, but like never got like crazy into them, but like I'm aware. Yeah. Okay. Like.

Dave Is Scared (07:03)
You

you

Look, let me tell you something. Me too. I typically don't like horror movies and I hate jump scares. But horror comics are very safe. If I don't like what I see, I just close the book. But also there's no jump scares in a book.

Matt - CDWA (07:23)
Yes.

Yeah, like exactly. I was just talking to one of the professors at the institution I worked through as PhDs. like, I told him, I was like, dude, I'm playing the resident evil two remake right now. Cause it's spooky season and I feel no guilt at all. paid a dollar 99 for the little pistol that has automatic, that has infinite ammo that I could just play this like an action game and shoot through everything. Cause I hate jump scares. I hate things that I can't kill in video games. I'm a baby. I don't know, but.

Back on topic.

Dave Is Scared (08:00)
I didn't realize you could also pay to win in Resident Evil now.

Matt - CDWA (08:02)
Absolutely. You can pay to win and everything. We're not, we're not doing that. I know that's a touching nerve. We're not doing that. We're not doing that today. so Scott Snyder, could do no wrong. And he had a series with Radfell Albuquerque called American Vampire. And as a former history major as well too, this kind of hit with me because it was about a species of vampire. There's a lot of different species of vampire throughout, you know, the world in this lore, but particularly in America.

Dave Is Scared (08:06)
Alright.

Matt - CDWA (08:32)
We had a specific strain called the American vampire that was the strongest, most violent and most ferocious. And the series kicks off in like 1920, but subsequent volumes work themselves up. So when I stopped reading, we got to like the Cold War. We got all the way up to like the 70s and 80s-ish. And it revolves around one vampire in particular named Skinner Sweet. I'm not...

Skinner Suite's pretty cool because he's always like sucking on a piece of candy. That's why I call him Skinner Suite. I'm not going to go super into his story, but he has a very interesting arc from where, from what I have read of this series. And there's also another character named Pearl Jones. And I will spoil this part of it. And this is in like the first volume, like a couple issues early on. Pearl is really our character that is our main

protagonist, because she is just a normal human. But she ends up becoming a vampire. And you're following her and like skin her through this whole series and their relationship how it develops. So like it was super like a really good series like one of, you know, my favorite horror series. I mean, it's we're we're not going in any particular order, but I really enjoy American vampire. I need to finish it. So much so I

bought the compendiums of volume one and two, which collect the whole series. I've just been waiting for time to sit down and read them. so yeah, American vampire at check it out. It's pretty damn good.

Dave Is Scared (10:13)
I'll be honest when I was putting the notes together for this episode and I saw you added this to the list. and I, I have for everyone listening, we're cheating a little bit in some cases because I went and got like a plot synopsis, or at least a quick about the comic either from like Wikipedia or the publisher website for some of these, just so we'd have like something consistent to read off of, and make sure that we're covering all the important things about some of these comics. Cause some of these has been a long time since I've read them. I know it has been for you too.

Matt - CDWA (10:42)
Yeah, I read this in...

Dave Is Scared (10:42)
But when I was looking up American vampire, I'll be honest, I was like, you know, maybe I didn't give this a chance when Matt was telling me about it before. Cause I remember you, you were big on this comic for a long time. And I was like, eh, I don't know if I need another, another vampire comic.

Matt - CDWA (10:51)
Dude, was super.

And there was like, it was like the heyday of all that, that horror stuff too. Like Walking Dead, American Vampire. He was doing this series called Witches. Scott Steiner was as well too. Like, you know, it was kind of a horror heyday. So maybe with some time now, you know, I don't want to dip into it.

Dave Is Scared (11:02)
Yeah.

So next up and this won't be the only time we mentioned this creator and remember these are not in any particular order There's a random order, but there's a comic called hack slash by One of my favorite guys in comics Tim Sealy I've been raving about local man since that comic started I'm talk about another Tim Sealy comic later on in this episode but hack slash Our friend Eric who does our boys let's reads with us

Matt - CDWA (11:27)
Yes, what is this about?

Dave Is Scared (11:45)
Is actually the person that got me into hack slash. So the series follows a character named Cassie hack. And, she has a dude with her named, I think his name is flawed. who was just sort of like this big, like. Bulky, like can't be killed type of a dude. and they are just hunting down. They call them slashers, but they're basically just like monsters and things like that, that prey on teenagers and people, people weaker than them.

That's it. That's the whole thing. Like they're just hunting down what really Amounts to like movie villains like the Friday Krueger's and and Jason's of the world It's such a cool comic. Now it is There is there's a lot of TNA in this thing. So it can get yeah. Yeah, it can get a little Like kind of how we've complained about the way starlight shows up naked and the boys

Matt - CDWA (12:26)
Dude... Yeah...

That's what I was going to say.

You

Dave Is Scared (12:44)
In like the most ridiculous ways and the most ridiculous times. It's not as bad as that. but there's definitely some, some questionable TNA material and hack slash. So if you can get past that, I would, I would recommend checking this out. It's in like six omnibus releases and it just came back. not, not long ago this year, actually with another mini series, they've some cool crossovers with hack slash too. it's crossed over the Vampirella, with evil Ernie.

Matt - CDWA (12:44)
Yeah.

Okay.

I just...

Dave Is Scared (13:14)
Chuckie like the actual movie, you know, like Chuckie the doll like Chuckie was in hack slash. so there's some cool stuff like that. also the, think it was like the reanimator or something. that dude shows up. That's like an actual movie villain that shows up in the hack slash comic. It's just a fun, it's a fun, like hack and slash comic. The name is on the nose. It really is. It tells you exactly what it is at the start.

Matt - CDWA (13:17)
You

You

Dave Is Scared (13:44)
with the title of the book. yeah, I read like I read the the five omnibuses that I had. So I was I got to quote unquote curd on this comic. And then I never went back to it after that. And I think I actually got rid of those comics. So, Mr. Sealy, if you ever listen to the podcast, sorry, bro. But if you send me some PDFs, I'll gladly add those to my digital collection. But yeah, man, big fan of this one.

Matt - CDWA (14:10)
Let's talk offline about those PDFs that might have those. Okay, I have them. I give them to you. definitely have fact slash. You're two for two, man. Like both of these sound like, just, I wasn't in my old man horny mood, I guess, back in the day. like, I just saw those covers and I'm like, this is like, this is too much DNA. Like this is not, like what is this about? Like, I don't know. I'm not like for this, but.

Dave Is Scared (14:14)
OK. Wonderful. wonderful. Even better. You should read those.

Yeah, I will say the.

The individual covers aren't always indicative of the material in the book. it's not all, it's not all tits and ass.

Matt - CDWA (14:42)
Of the actual story? Okay.

That's what like, and I'm sure I saw like the most depraved, perverted variant covers that were, you know, not the cover A, so it's probably a lot worse. Like you go to a convention and you see this and I'm like, these nudie covers, like I don't want anything to do with that, but.

Dave Is Scared (15:01)
Dude, so not to totally sidebar, but I didn't know that nude variants were a thing until very recently. Dude, what the fuck, come on. Guys, porn is free on the internet, and it's real people. Not to yuck anyone's yum here, but that is one thing where I just struggle to understand why that exists.

Matt - CDWA (15:06)
That's a huge thing. That's a huge thing.

I don't think we should go down this rabbit hole right now. We're getting into all kind of people's weird fetishes and I don't we need to get into that.

Dave Is Scared (15:26)
I agree. agree. All right, let's stick to the list. Yeah. Well, we're we're about to be four for four. I know that because I know what's coming.

Matt - CDWA (15:34)
Yeah, yeah, so this comic...

would probably be my number one if we were going to make a list just because this and invincible are like the two well watchmen isn't in any book but this and invincible were like the two comics that really showed me the light on independent comics before that i was strictly marvel dc guy like that was pretty much all i like superheroes capes but then dave introduced me to invincible

And then I feel like everyone on the planet knows about the property walking dead. I remember when this TV show got announced, it sounded like a really cool concept and I went and I was broke as a college student and I spent a lot of the refund check I would get, from my institution and I bought all the volumes and I read like 12 volumes of the walking dead before the show even came out. I just got super obsessed.

Dave Is Scared (16:12)
Mm-hmm.

Matt - CDWA (16:37)
then my roommate read it and we read as much that was out. I mean, Walking Dead, I don't feel like we don't need to go into it too much, but Zombie Apocalypse, know, it's, yeah, like Rick, yeah, Rick Grimes is the main character and it follows him and his posse throughout the Zombie Apocalypse. And the thing that was cool about Walking Dead is like, yeah, it started out as zombies, but like, as the series progresses, it's like the humans are the...

Dave Is Scared (16:46)
No. If you don't know who walking, what walking dead is at this point, you're not, you, you, we can't help you.

Yep.

.

Matt - CDWA (17:05)
the humans are the main antagonists and the zombies are just kinda in the background and they're, they're in the backdrop. That's not really what it's about. It's about how screwed up human society can become. yeah, Walking Dead is awesome. I read up to like issue 130. I don't know exactly when it ended. think maybe 160, 165, 166.

Dave Is Scared (17:25)
You're so close. You're so close. I don't know. No, I mean, you got so close to the end. Just finish the damn comic. I don't know what issue you added on. This is not a guessing game. just you got so close to finishing.

Matt - CDWA (17:32)
yeah, yeah, Yeah. No, I'm planning to re- No, I thought you knew. I thought you knew. Yeah. It like, I ended like, you know, 130s, 120s. And then when it did-

Dave Is Scared (17:47)
yeah, you actually were not close. Issue 193.

Matt - CDWA (17:50)
193. Okay. So I probably stopped at like 130. And what was cool about Walking Dead, which we had talked, we talked about this a while ago is like Kirkman, they solicited issues like three months out, but he actually ended the issue just one month. And it was like, this is the last issue of Walking Dead. And I know that pissed a lot of retailers off, but that was awesome. Like that was awesome. And I did end up reading the last two issues of the story. So I know how it ends, but I need to fill in the gaps because I just, I could,

Dave Is Scared (18:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Damn, that's crazy. You do some wild shit, What do yeah, you could have, but... Well, don't spoil it for me, because I would still like to finish it someday. You're that type of dude, you'll go and watch the YouTube videos of like the end of a video game you haven't played, won't you?

Matt - CDWA (18:20)
I couldn't resist. Dude, I couldn't resist. Well, I found out what happened and I couldn't resist. I'm not going to, but all I will say is...

No, I won't do that.

Dave Is Scared (18:38)
Even if you didn't play the game.

Matt - CDWA (18:41)
so like, you talking about like, if it's like game two and I really want to play game two and game one I didn't play, I will absolutely watch a recap. I will absolutely watch it. So like the Yakuza series, how there's like six games and I want to play the seventh one. Yeah, I watched like the recap of five and six. I'm like, I'm not going to have time to play that. Yes, I will do that.

Dave Is Scared (18:49)
I don't care. Whatever. However you want.

Yeah.

What about a game you started and didn't finish? You won't go and watch a YouTube video on the ending? You would. You would. You would.

Matt - CDWA (19:02)
I'm hating me. It depends on the game. If I'm not going to beat it, yeah, I'll do that. Like, I don't know. Most games I try to, most games I start, I try to beat though. So, but regardless, we're getting, we're getting, we're getting, we're getting into my, my psychology now, but, I will just say it did end very, it was a very satisfying ending. So that's all I'll say. Walking Dead.

Dave Is Scared (19:10)
Yeah, I knew it. I knew it.

Yeah, I'm just giving you a hard time.

Heh

My my you were there for my most embarrassing Walking Dead moment So I also was was all in on Walking Dead the comic before the show started and I actually have a Walking Dead tattoo the zombie from the cover of the first trade paperback I have that zombie head on my calf with like some fall foliage around it said it wants to just look like a comic book tattoo so it's more like

Matt - CDWA (19:45)
Thank you.

Dave Is Scared (19:56)
comic art but adjusted to fit the style of like a good tattoo not to pat myself on the back but it is a good tattoo yeah but we were at New York Comic Con one year with our buddy Paul and Charlie Adler was at New York Comic Con that year and I saw him I was like hey man like I have like your your art on me check it out that dude could not have given a fuck less that I was there

Matt - CDWA (20:03)
It's a very good tattoo.

You

Dave Is Scared (20:24)
And that I was showing him a tattoo of his art. He not have cared any less about that interaction. Not only did it crush me, was actually like, I was really annoyed that I even bothered to like seek him out and be like, I thought he released like pretend to care. No dude could not be bothered.

Matt - CDWA (20:33)
Your voice broke.

Yeah.

Yeah. Don't me, I met Scott Snyder twice that weekend and he was awesome. One I paid for it then I just saw him walking out and he was awesome. I don't know.

Dave Is Scared (20:52)
Do you remember Paul almost running into Robert Kirkman as he was leaving the bathroom?

Matt - CDWA (20:59)
I do not.

Dave Is Scared (21:00)
Paul was going in, Kirkman was coming out. Yeah, that was before, you know, when Robert Kirkman could walk freely on the show floor of New York Comic Con without being mobbed. Now he's the famous celebrity type guy. Good for him.

Matt - CDWA (21:03)
That's awesome.

Yeah, the good old days,

Dave Is Scared (21:16)
Moving on, this I think might be the only in our, I guess if we count Vertigo, it's not, but if we count like mainline Marvel DC, this is the only one from those two that makes the list. And if you've been listening to the podcast since the beginning, you will not be surprised to hear me say the 1990s Ghost Rider and Spirits of Vengeance, Midnight Sun's Marvel stuff.

Matt - CDWA (21:17)
good old days.

like it is.

Yeah.

yeah.

Dave Is Scared (21:46)
I love all of that so much. I'm talking my ghost writers, Danny Catch, Johnny who never met him. I know Danny and Danny's my guy. It's dark, gritty, grotesque. It's firmly in the horror genre most of the time. And other comics like Morbius and Doctor Strange and the Night Stalkers and the Darkhold, they all deserve a mention along with these two comics. I really just should have called it Midnight Suns like the Marvel Midnight Sun stuff.

And I'm not talking about that midnight sons where they spelled it S U N S for that video game that just came out. Not that that's not it. You got to go read the 90s stuff. So good.

I don't know, we did a whole episode about this, about the Midnight Sun stuff before. If you wanna know more of our thoughts on the Midnight Suns from 90s Marvel, go listen to that episode. I forget what number it is, but it's in there. It's in the backlog.

Matt - CDWA (22:40)
It's good. It's good. All right. My next was going to be super quick. I didn't even really read this. I skimmed it. I haven't read it yet. I have the first two. No, I out myself. That's just how cool this art style was.

Dave Is Scared (22:50)
Damn bro, you don't have to say that on the podcast. can do it to yourself.

man's eroding our credibility live as we record.

Matt - CDWA (23:00)
No, I'm not gonna fraud. I'm not gonna fraud for people. but well, if you're like, get in depth and talk about it, but I don't know. Maniac of New York. Pretty much I saw this comic book on the stand and I had to buy it. It is Friday the 13th, but in comic book form, like true. That's pretty much all you need to know. It's

Dave Is Scared (23:03)
No one will ever know.

Well, also it takes place in New York City and not at a lake.

Matt - CDWA (23:28)
Jason Takes Manhattan, my favorite, my favorite Jason. That's don't come, don't come in my credit book. Now, if you want to talk about Jason Takes Manhattan, we could talk about that. We can talk about him taking his mask off in front of the street punks. We could talk about him fighting the black dude on the rooftop and getting the black dude's head up or cut it. I can talk about that. But yes, this is, this is that, this is that. Yeah. There's multiple volumes of it. I think there's three volumes of it.

Dave Is Scared (23:32)
Okay, fair. You're right. I can't argue that. You're right.

I don't

I don't wanna do it.

Matt - CDWA (23:58)
Can't remember what I think the publishers aftershock if you really want this book You should go out and get it because I think aftershock is going out of business pretty soon So they used to solicit comics now. It's only trade paperback So I would go out and buy some of these if this is something of interest to you. Look it up maniac in New York That's my 30 second review

Dave Is Scared (24:07)
No.

That was so much longer than 30 seconds. Also not even a review, but.

Matt - CDWA (24:21)
That was a minute and 20 seconds.

I mean, yeah, sure. All right. I'm going to shut up. Yep.

Dave Is Scared (24:27)
or whatever. Honestly dude, I think this comic sounds cool as shit.

Matt - CDWA (24:32)
Maniac? Yeah, I need to read it. have the-

Dave Is Scared (24:33)
Yeah. Other than like the, the name of one of the main characters is Zelda, petty bone or something. And I'm like, what the, what the fuck did you get this out of like an AI random name generator?

Matt - CDWA (24:38)
I'm

Yeah, I need to read that. I should read that this month, honestly. Finish it before the month.

Dave Is Scared (24:51)
You should. All right. This is our second Tim Seeley mention of the pod. A comic called a revival by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton. I'm just going to read the synopsis of this one. It came straight from from the image comics website. And I just think it's it encapsulates really well. All you need to know about this comic. One day in rural central Wisconsin, the dead came back to life.

Matt - CDWA (24:55)
You love him.

Dave Is Scared (25:18)
Now it's up to Officer Dana Cypress to deal with the media scrutiny, religious zealots and government quarantine that has come with them. In a town where the living have to learn to deal with those who are supposed to be dead, Officer Cypress must solve a brutal murder and everyone alive or undead is a suspect. This is one of the most interesting takes on the zombie genre that I have ever experienced. I was highly skeptical of this comic. I actually think you might've been someone that recommended this to me.

I bought it during a comixology sale. got all nine volumes dirt cheap dirt cheap and I love revival and there it it is so much more than just the dead came back to life and now like Dana's got to just deal with what's going on there are layers and layers and layers to this story some less satisfying than others but in a general sense

Matt - CDWA (25:52)
Yeah.

Dave Is Scared (26:16)
This for me, if you're a fan of horror comics and you've not read revival, this is a must read. I think everyone should experience this comic.

Matt - CDWA (26:21)
Mmm. Mmm.

Dave Is Scared (26:27)
And there's nowhere near the TNA that's in hack slash.

Matt - CDWA (26:30)
Okay, I think I also have all these. Well, I'm gonna have to take this list and see what I have and be like, okay, yep. I think I have all of the.

Dave Is Scared (26:35)
By the way, I should say I feel like I'm going pretty hard at Tim Seely about hack slash and all the tits and ass in there. feel you know, but you know what? But the whole like the comic is supposed to be kind of like a love note to like slasher movies and stuff and like that is a key component of every good like 80s and 90s slasher movie like two teenagers are having sex and then one of them gets killed or both of them. That stuff does sort of belong in there.

Matt - CDWA (26:44)
It was a different time. It was a different time.

80... yeah.

for sure. Sure.

Dave Is Scared (27:05)
In that regards, I don't want to, I don't want to slander the guy too bad. That was my last comment.

Matt - CDWA (27:10)
Tim Sealy wasn't comm- he wasn't commissioned in nudie covers. He didn't, he didn't want that up in New York Comic-Com. That's not him. You know? Yeah, you were talking really highly on revival. So like last year you were really all about it. So did you finish it? said? Pretty close. Nine. Okay.

Dave Is Scared (27:14)
Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true.

I love it. Yep.

I'm on volume eight or nine. I'm really close to the end. It's one of those comics that I started out like really, really fast and then I slowed down a little bit. And then I got to a part where I could tell we were starting like the final act and then I didn't want it to end. So started slowing down.

Matt - CDWA (27:36)
Yeah.

So you're the son of a bitch who will go to the end of the video game and not fight the last boss. You're that guy. And you'll be like, I don't want to finish it. I don't want to end it. my one roommate was like that. He would never finish games like, dude, fight the boss like end it. He's like, nah, man, it's too good. Like, all right, teach her. I get it. I get it. Understood.

Dave Is Scared (27:51)
Yes

Yeah, that's me.

I'm the yin to your yang, my friend.

Balance, life's about balance. I'm the opposite of your specific neuroses. have my own that is the counterbalance.

Matt - CDWA (28:10)
Life is.

Yes. Yes. We all do. I was going to say, you need to call this podcast the Sealy Bros between you and Eric. You guys love you some Tim Sealy, man. Big, Sealy guys. How many? Why do have that many left? Okay. Next. I am also going to read this description just because this is a comic that's pretty important to our other brother, Eric. That's not here.

Dave Is Scared (28:25)
I do.

Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (28:45)
And I enjoy it as well too. So when the children of archers peak begin to go missing, everything seems hopeless. Most children never return, but the ones that do have terrible stories, impossible stories of terrifying creatures that live in the shadows. Their only hope of finding and eliminating the threat is the arrival of a mysterious stranger. One who actually believes the children and claims to see what they see. Her name is Erica Slaughter. She kills monsters. That's all she does.

And she bears the costs because it must be done. This book in series is called something is killing the children by Janes Tynan and Werther De La Dara. We did an episode on this and episode 76 of our podcast that was in, 2023. I want to say, yep. Yep. Episode 72. 72, sorry.

Dave Is Scared (29:33)
Damn, you came with the episode number, all right. I never have the episode number, good on you, man.

I thought you said 76.

Matt - CDWA (29:44)
This series is great. I really enjoy it. I just stopped collecting it singles and life got busy, but I have the two hardcovers. showed them off last episode. Eric loves this. This is one of the few series that he collects like paper. I know. And he's like, I will collect the, talked about it last episode. He said, even if there's like a lull in an arc, I will continue reading this book.

There's multiple spin-off series, but I don't find them nearly as enjoyable as something that's killing the children. There's also House of Slaughter that talks about the various houses or clans of the people that hunt the monsters and all that. gets really kind of convoluted. I'm not doing service. It's not that complicated, but you really need to read, you really need to read the story to understand what's going on. But like, there's always like Book of Slaughter. There's all these one shots and stuff like that. But the main core series is really, really good.

Dave Is Scared (30:27)
the

Matt - CDWA (30:39)
Dave hated it from what I remember. He didn't hate it. He's just like, eh, you guys are kind of gassing it up a little bit. And I'm like, eh, you should probably keep reading it because it gets really good. But yeah.

Dave Is Scared (30:42)
I didn't hate it. It didn't.

I will say sometimes I can be, I can self sabotage a little bit. If it feels like someone's like really hyping something up, I'll go in a little skeptical and if it doesn't like exceed my wildest expectations, I'll feel a little disappointed in it. That could have been what happened there. It's.

Matt - CDWA (31:00)
Casting it up, dude.

Yeah.

Yeah. We were gassing. He had single issues. I'm like flashing him.

Dave Is Scared (31:13)
Yeah, you were you guys were really like.

Matt - CDWA (31:17)
I feel like this is one you could find down the road and you'd be like, all right. Like, I don't know. It's...

Dave Is Scared (31:24)
I mean, since you didn't out me, I'll out myself, because you were there when this happened, but I own, in paper, the first five tray paperbacks of this. I bought that at Cowtown Comic Con when you were down here visiting me. So I appreciate you being the bigger man and not throwing me to the wolves here, but I'll do it.

Matt - CDWA (31:36)
and it's

I'm not gonna, I'll never fraud you Dave. I'll never fraud you. It means more that you spent money on it than you actually read it. It means more.

Dave Is Scared (31:45)
I'll be honest, I don't know if I still have them, but I did buy them.

We had to do some preseason cuts when we moved some, books had to go. I, honestly, I wasn't going to read them. If I'm going to read that, I'm to read it digitally. though I, I actually, I truly do love the synopsis or like the, yeah, like the, like the, you. That's the word of the premise of something that's going to children. I think it's fucking awesome. I think Erica Slaughter has one of the coolest designs.

Matt - CDWA (31:56)
I understand. It's a lot of paper to haul around. It's a lot of paper to haul around.

The premise of it, yeah.

Dave Is Scared (32:23)
for a comic book character that I've ever seen.

Matt - CDWA (32:25)
I don't know how this didn't... I'm the hater. There's like a strong female protagonist. I don't know how this did not hit with you. Like I'm just like... I was baffled when you said that. was like, what? No, it's all good. It's all good. When we get it for Humble Bundle, for all six volumes, when we get a Humble Bundle for all six volumes, you can read it four years down the line and we'll see what happens there.

Dave Is Scared (32:32)
I know.

I enjoyed it. just didn't. like. I don't know, I don't know. But moving. Huh?

Yeah. Count me in. Count me in. boy, if I had a dollar for every time I said that I could buy some more digital comics, I'm not going to That's me. That's all of us. It's not just me. next up spread by Justin Jordan and Kyle Stram. I'm going to just read this too, because I think the synopsis is way better than I could have said it myself. 10 years ago, we dug too deep.

Matt - CDWA (32:54)
You will add it up. You buy some more. It's just a snake eating its tail. Yeah.

Dave Is Scared (33:16)
We unleashed something ancient that couldn't be controlled, something that couldn't be stopped, twisting everything it touched into more of itself, the spread. Humanity was nearly destroyed before we found a way to slow the spread to a crawl. Now deep inside the quarantine zone, one man has found the key to stopping it forever, a baby girl. And if he can save her, he might save the world. The art in this book is what drew me in initially because it's very, very visceral.

It's very gory. the.

I don't know how to describe. There's something about the art that is just it's almost like a 70s indie vibe, but it's got some polish to it and. I don't know, man, it's just something about it. It just drew me in and the story. Could support the art that was important to me that you know if if the story didn't didn't hit too, I probably wouldn't have kept going with it, but the main character. He doesn't talk.

Matt - CDWA (34:12)
Yeah.

Dave Is Scared (34:23)
He just kind of grunts. He's, he's essentially a silent protagonist. there's a lot of twists and turns along the way, but, he's got this baby and he's trying to protect this baby from a whole lot of different threats, you know, from the spread from other humans. there's a lot of crazy shit that happens in this comic. I don't really know what to compare it to. And even the spread itself is just sort of this, like this.

organic thing that from where they, they found it when they dug too deep into the earth's core or crust or whatever, it came out of that and started to take things over. And as it would take animals and other people, they would just be assimilated into this like big, like throbbing pile of like goo and bone and other things. but also it can like create autonomous

Versions of itself like small things like bipeds and like animals and stuff are like animals infected by the spread can be used by the spread to go and attack people It's I don't know. It's just there's nothing like it that I've ever read before and I'm not doing it justice in this explanation It's only five trades. It's very short And it reads quick. There's not a ton of dialogue in this comic. So worth checking out if you're looking for a sort of post-apocalyptic setting with a big

Matt - CDWA (35:23)
Hmm.

Dave Is Scared (35:52)
lob of stuff. Boy that doesn't sound cool at all. I know that. You gotta just trust me on this one.

Matt - CDWA (35:56)
you

That is not a Tim Sealy one shot of a slashing glob of something. You're very high on the spread. You're super into it. You're like, I'm reading spread tonight. Can't play games. Like you really got into it. So you were sucked in. Yay.

Dave Is Scared (36:04)
Nah.

Dude, there's like so I remember like I would screenshot panels that were just so cool and gory and just like post them on Instagram and stuff. I just love that comic. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (36:21)
You're super into that. So I was, I was checking while you were talking, have you ever read the Luther Strode series? Like the strange town of Luther Strode? It's not the same artist, but Justin Jordan writes or Justin Jordan writes it. And it's very simple. Like it's a very similar. Like there's a dude gutted on a wall fan in the first panel of Luther Strode and a guy who gets like the Omni-Man chopped through the middle of the stomach. Like it's.

Dave Is Scared (36:32)
No, is that the same artist?

Hmm.

Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (36:51)
A very messed up style like shred or spread. So I was wondering if like you had read that at all. Cause I think you might. When I was solicited. Yeah. That was like three volumes. There was legacy. The legacy I think was the last one I read like the first two, but got to finish those at some point. But yeah, spread good stuff. This is the last synopsis I will read probably. And this one's like really short too, for the next series on my list.

Dave Is Scared (36:57)
Mm-mm. I remember seeing the comic on the thorax, but no, never read it.

Matt - CDWA (37:22)
When a small town beat cop comes home to bury his murdered father, the revered Philadelphia detective James Sanger Sr. He becomes the unraveling mystery that leads him down a path of horror that will shake his beliefs to the core. The city that once was a symbol of liberty and freedom, his fallen prey to corruption, poverty, unemployment, brutality, and worse, vampires.

That series is by Rodney Barnes and Sean and Jason Sean Alexander. This is Killadelphia. I heard about this book on a podcast and once again, I think this scratched my like American history roots and history roots and American patriotism and all that good stuff and love of America and it's set in Philadelphia. And this book was really good. I didn't finish it. I read

three volumes of it, maybe four. The first volume, final page of the first issue was ingrained in my head. It was like, how we talk about like, I can shut the comic and the jump scares and all that we were talking about later. I thought of this last panel.

And it was like ingrained in my head just how it was drawn and what it looked like artistically. And, and I'm the guy who's always complaining about like, like superhero art. This is not superhero. This is raw, like scratchy art, but it really works for this book. Minor spoiler. This is on the back of the trade. Jimmy Sanger is the, Jimmy is the son and he's going home to bury his father. And at the end of the last issue,

are the first issue, I believe it is his father coming out of his grave and he has the most creepy looking yellow eyes ever because he's been re reanimated and he's like a vampire in this. This book involves. Political figures from American history, and that's kind of why I liked it, that they've been reanimated and their zombies and the real machinations of what they're doing. And it's taking real historical elements and doing like an alternate history thing. So like.

I was super into it. Also, talk and we've had multiple talks about like representation and all that stuff. This is a story that does representation really well, in my opinion. There's a lot of African American characters in this book that are written very well and have very good motivations. And there's one there's one kid I don't remember his name. It's been so long since I read it. But like his motivations and like how

Rodney Barnes is explaining Philadelphia through his eyes, really good stuff. Not over the top, but really good stuff. Check out Killadelfia, check out the first arc, see if it vibes with you. I think it's still ongoing. So yeah, it's someone you could jump on board with and still rock with. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's still going. It might be on a little bit of a hiatus. I should have mentioned that with the other one as well too. Not a man.

Dave Is Scared (40:33)
I didn't know it was still going.

Matt - CDWA (40:43)
Nevermind, of the other, or something's killing the children is ongoing. So that's another one you could get on board with. So yeah.

Dave Is Scared (40:46)
Yeah.

Next up, a lot of people have probably heard of this because of the movie.

Matt - CDWA (40:54)
I don't know much about it. I've heard of it, but I don't know much about it. I've seen the movie.

Dave Is Scared (40:57)
Have you not seen the movie? OK, well, then you know the movie is very comic accurate. I'll tell you that it's very, very accurate. It's 30 days of night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. I'm not going to read this synopsis to this one, but the the the short of it is in Barrow, Alaska, the sun sets for 30 days. So vampires go there to feed freely the blood stock.

Matt - CDWA (41:03)
Okay, it's been a long time.

It's Woodstock. It's Woodstock. Yeah, Woodstock.

Dave Is Scared (41:29)
Bloodstock for vampires. can feed. I have to worry about the sun killing them. A few residents of the town are able to like hide because the vampires are slightly weakened because of the cold. And there's an elder vampire that goes there to keep the vampires a secret. He wants to stop the vampires that went there to feed so the world doesn't find out that vampires exist.

Matt - CDWA (41:44)
Okay.

Dave Is Scared (41:56)
It's only a three issue mini series the first 30 days of night, but there are multiple mini series. yeah, there's a lot. There's like six or seven, maybe, this, the, this is the one that started at all. It's a quick read, highly recommend it. If you've seen the movie, but you haven't read the comic, I urge you to do so particularly because Ben templesmith's art is made for horror. This dude.

Matt - CDWA (42:02)
There's a lot.

Dave Is Scared (42:26)
is one of my favorite artists period. His art in 30 days of night sent me down a path at the time to just collect every comic that Ben Templesmith had drawn because I just love this dude's art so much. I don't know how to describe his style other than it's it's it's stylized but also kind of scratchy.

but also very visceral.

Matt - CDWA (42:59)
It's kind of got some of the paint panels I'm seeing look very Sandman-ish, like from the old Sandmans. And this is kind of what Killadelfia looks like as well too, like this kind of art style. That's pretty cool.

Dave Is Scared (43:04)
Yeah, yeah, you could, yeah.

I agree.

Matt - CDWA (43:18)
Yeah, there's a lot of, I just remember like seeing a Humble Bundle sale, there was like a lot of 30 days and night comic books. was like, I didn't know. I did not know they made this many of them. A lot of mini series, spinoffs, XYZ.

Dave Is Scared (43:27)
Yep. Do remember who published this?

Matt - CDWA (43:34)
30 days, was it?

I want to say Dark Horse, but I know that's not right. That can't be fair. That was my second guess, but I was like, that's it. Yep.

Dave Is Scared (43:41)
No, but you're close. was IDW.

And that was this was one of the first things that IDW had published that really took off.

Matt - CDWA (43:51)
feel like, yeah, this was the area where they had like Ghostbusters 30 days a night. And I'm like, why? Like, it's just some random stuff. I miss those Ghostbusters comics and Transformers.

Dave Is Scared (44:01)
And 30, 30 days of night did a lot for IDW. did a lot for Steve Niles. you know, a few years after 30 days of night came out, Steve Niles was kind of noticed like the dude that writes horror comics. he was a bit of a rock star in the horror comics realm. thanks to this comic and, you you could argue that it put IDW on a path to be, you know, one of the more prominent independent publishers for a really long time until.

Matt - CDWA (44:14)
Okay.

Dave Is Scared (44:29)
the last couple of years where they've sort of been feels like circling the drain with a less than $2 per share stock valuation and just a really rough go of things other than like TMNT and other licensed comics. They don't have much.

Matt - CDWA (44:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That's all they have is TMNT. feel like most... They got Sonic maybe? Like, yeah. I feel like that's only a matter of time though until Hasbro moves that stuff over to Image with like trans... with everything else. GI Joe Transformers if... Kirkman will take them. Mm-hmm. I want Hasbro. They're... yeah, all that. All the stuff we like. My Little Pony, Magic the Gathering. Like, yeah. D &D. Yeah.

Dave Is Scared (44:50)
They still got some license stuff. They're still doing like My Little Pony and stuff.

Is Hasbro My Little Pony? I didn't know that.

I Magic the Gathering because they own Wizards of the Coast. I just didn't know about My Little Pony.

Matt - CDWA (45:15)
pretty sure My Little Pony is Hasbro. Fact check me. My, yeah. I'm going to believe myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hasbro, My Little Pony. You can double check me, but I'm, yeah. Sad that I know that My Little Pony is owned by Hasbro. It's true. Stray Dogs is my next series.

Dave Is Scared (45:21)
I believe you.

All right, well, you take this next one and I'll look it up. Or did you already look it up?

You have two daughters.

Matt - CDWA (45:45)
We have a synopsis like Dave said, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but Lady and the Tramp meets Silence of the Lambs. That's what this book is. If you like old school, like Don Bluth art, like Disney art or wherever, like this was really a cool, a well illustrated book. I read the whole thing. Some people like gassed it up like a lot.

Like, this is the most like heartbreaking thing you're over read. I won't say that, but it is pretty touching because it involves dogs and anything that involves animals. pretty much it is. There's a serial killer. He kills people and he takes their dogs. And this story is about the dogs trying to escape and like find their masters and stuff. It's, it's pretty touching. there is a another secondary series like.

This was supposed to be like a one-off thing, like a one trade thing. And then I didn't read the series. had it collected. I was waiting for the part, but it's called like stray dogs, dog days. I'm showing Dave. I know we're audio for the most part, but yeah, there is another little mini couple issues for stray dogs, dog days that it really took off and people were like, I need more. need more. So stray dogs is good and it's short. It's only one trade. So definitely worth checking out, like even just for the art.

Dave Is Scared (47:10)
Did you tell the, did you give the creators and I missed it? okay.

Matt - CDWA (47:13)
I did not Tony fleeks and Trish Forrester. Tony fleeks worked on something else recently that I can't remember. You got it. Okay. I was like, Tony fleek. know, I know you're that's right. That's right. I was like, that's right. I was like, you're a fleeks guy. yeah.

Dave Is Scared (47:19)
don't you worry. ready. I'm already ready for that. Tony fleeks is on local man guy. Local man.

I'll be honest when I was when I was getting our notes ready for this one I was looking up synopsis and I searched stray dogs and the first couple results are like yeah If you like Disney style, this is about some dogs that I'm like I'm looking at the right fucking thing like this can't be the right comic it took me quite a bit to like find the thing that made me realize this is actually a like a Disney art style, but it's a horror comic but from the dogs

Matt - CDWA (47:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Dave Is Scared (47:59)
point of view. OK, this feels this feels super unique to me just reading the little bit that I read about it while I was getting this ready and then hearing you talk about it. I ain't reading this, though.

Matt - CDWA (47:59)
Yeah, yeah it's cool.

You're a big dog. That's what I'm saying. was like, I don't know if you can handle it.

Dave Is Scared (48:13)
I got a dog, I can't.

I'll tell you man, there are at least once a week, I narrowly escape a serious car accident on the roads here in Dallas, Fort Worth. These people don't know how to drive down here. It is such a dangerous, dangerous city to drive in. Statistically, Dallas is the most dangerous city in the world to drive in due to the number of accidental deaths that happen on our roads. And every time that happens,

Matt - CDWA (48:36)
It's a better, yeah.

Dave Is Scared (48:47)
One of the first things I think about afterwards is Dusty would never know what happened to me. She would just think I never came home. Like I just left and abandoned her. I can't read this comic. I'll fucking cry. I'll cry like a baby. No, I'm not doing it. Hey, those of you that have read it or want to, I commend you. You've got you've got more tenacity than me and you're made of starter stuff. Good for you.

Matt - CDWA (48:55)
no, don't, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, don't do it. can't, no, definitely not, definitely not. Don't do it.

Dave Is Scared (49:18)
Spawn by Todd McFarlane. I think this has to be somewhere on the list Matt use you put in the notes like it has to be somewhere Matt actually had it in our honorable mentions section. I moved it up to the main list because for several reasons Before I give you those reasons if you don't know who spawn is or what spawn is Al Simmons was a mercenary who died while on a mission He goes to hell because of all the people that he killed as a mercenary. He makes a deal with the devil

Matt - CDWA (49:24)
Yeah.

in place.

Dave Is Scared (49:46)
to go back to earth to see his wife, Wanda, again. But he was tricked by the devil. Surprise, surprise. He's horribly scarred. His wife doesn't recognize him. She's afraid of him. He's got all these weird powers and he ends up deciding. Well, not really deciding. He has no choice. But in effort to atone for his past, he uses his powers for good as the hell spawn. This comic is the longest running. Current.

still in publication, Indie comic of all time. This is this is recent, I think. Or is it second is Savage Dragon ahead of it? I'm now I'm questioning if Savage Dragon has more. It's one of the longest running, if not the I do think Savage Dragon might have it, but I'm not I'd have to go back and look unless they're counting all the spin offs and stuff for spawn as issues of the series, then spawn might have it. Yeah, in like issue count.

Matt - CDWA (50:26)
cool yes i don't know yeah

Yeah, might be, yeah, I think so.

Yeah, if they did that, yeah. Well, now there's like six more series, dude.

Dave Is Scared (50:46)
But man, I loved Todd McFarlane, drawn Spider-Man as a kid. And when all those dudes went and started Image Comics, Spawn was the first comic that I bought from Image. I read that comic for a very long time as a kid. I've come and gone from Spawn multiple times. As we all do, they lost me when they started creating all these monthlies in addition to Spawn.

Matt - CDWA (51:07)
As you do, as we all do.

Dave Is Scared (51:15)
and made it more of like a superhero book. I don't read Spawn for superhero stuff. I read Spawn for the horror aspect of things. So I'm currently out on Spawn. But yeah, you know, if you read, if you're a comics person, you know who Spawn is. I don't have to tell you about Spawn.

Matt - CDWA (51:35)
You have no idea how many nights I've stayed up and watched old commercials or the intro. Do you remember the spawn? I know you remember the spawn animated show they used to have.

Dave Is Scared (51:44)
Brother, I got the DVDs in my theater room right now.

Matt - CDWA (51:46)
Okay. So, all right. So when I come to Texas, we're going to have to watch them because I've watched like a compiled reel of all the intros that Todd McFarlane does going into the episodes. And he's like talking about what would you do if your life, you know, you died and you had an opportunity to make a deal with the devil and it flashes before you. Like he had those, these corny ass 90s intros. I love them. You have no, no idea how I've been up at like one o'clock in the morning watching these, all these spawn intros.

Dave Is Scared (51:53)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (52:15)
Just weird stuff that goes on in my brain, but yeah, spawn. It's great. Al Simmons.

Dave Is Scared (52:20)
It's funny that they got it so right with the animated show, like making it super mature and putting on HBO, and they got it so wrong with the live action movie.

Matt - CDWA (52:27)
in movie. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like he's gonna take another shot at it. It's a cloud. You're violator, yeah.

Dave Is Scared (52:31)
Like John Leguizamo as the violator. Come on, man. Not John Leguizamo.

Matt - CDWA (52:38)
He's gonna, he's taking another shot at it though, so we'll see. Maybe they'll be able to, yeah, there's been a lot of like talks like seriously heating up. Jamie Foxx was rumored at one time to be Al Simmons. I was like, I can see that, you know? I don't know.

Dave Is Scared (52:42)
really I didn't know that.

Hmm. We just watched that Netflix movie that Jamie Foxx is in the day shift. He's a vampire hunter.

Matt - CDWA (52:57)
see that okay I didn't see that that yeah yeah I was going to watch that one but I did not watch it yeah okay sounds good

Dave Is Scared (53:05)
Don't bother.

Abby fell asleep. She couldn't even finish it.

Matt - CDWA (53:10)
That's all I need to know.

Dave Is Scared (53:15)
Here's our review. Abby fell asleep. I wish I would have.

Matt - CDWA (53:18)
I was next to Roshan to it. good stuff. My last book is by Zdarsky. I was on a big Chip Dziarsky phase about two years ago. Still love Chip, loved his run on Daredevil, part of his run on Batman. was so Zdarsky and Ramon Perez. Book was called Stillwater. I really enjoyed the first two arcs of it. It kind of crashed and burned at the end. didn't

Dave Is Scared (53:21)
One sentence review.

Matt - CDWA (53:48)
I didn't like the ending. three, it was like three trade, three or four trades. So it's like a manageable series, but yeah, pretty much just a series where there is a town called Stillwater where when you were in Stillwater and the, the, the County around Stillwater, no one dies. You can get shot. You can jump off a building. You don't die and you don't really age. Things just stay the same.

Dave Is Scared (53:50)
Okay.

Yeah, that's not bad. 1820 issues ish.

Matt - CDWA (54:18)
And the thing I liked about it was it's actually somewhat realistic about like what happens when you leave and like how they explain like what they do with the mail and like why people don't leave and you know what happens if you try to leave and if you get across people bring you back like I really like that ship thought on a deeper level about it because you're like thinking like this is ridiculous like how would this even play they talk about like

your family on the outside, like how you communicate with them, like really cool premise, but they just didn't stick the landing for me. Like they really didn't. It was the first two volumes were so good. And some of the twists and turns were really good, but it just ran out of steam at the end for me. But Stillwater was good for the first two arcs, so yeah.

Dave Is Scared (54:53)
That's too bad.

feel like Stillwater could have been in her honorable mentions. You don't seem as jazzed about this as other comics.

Matt - CDWA (55:09)
Probably. Dude, I was like soup. could have been honorable mention spawn definitely took that place. So let's start the honorable mentions. But yeah. So still water is one of my honorable mentions. no, I was like, I don't know. I'm sure that was one. was like, yo, have you read still water? You should read this. I know I was guessing like sending texts to you at one point. I was like, dude, this book is really good. And then there's just air came out of the. So yeah.

Dave Is Scared (55:20)
Yeah

I it's only three trades. I might still just give it a shot, you know? I've been, I've been pounding the pavement on reading lately. I've been catching up on, my DC stuff. I'm, I'm up to absolute power now. And, I, I read like 10 or 12 issues of my Valiant stack today. So I'm almost up to resurgence of the Valiant universe, the event there that brings the Valiant universe back. So.

Matt - CDWA (55:35)
Yeah, the first two were really good.

Okay. Yeah.

This dude's current. He's hitting up the Discord. This guy's current.

It's like you're probably current. Don't burn through that too fast. You're not going to have much more to read.

Dave Is Scared (56:04)
No, man, aliens got that thing on track. There are multiple books per month.

Matt - CDWA (56:07)
is it? Okay, all right.

Okay.

Dave Is Scared (56:12)
We're back, baby. We're back. Anyway, honorable mentions.

Matt - CDWA (56:18)
I'm not the hugest, like, aliens guy. Like, I know of the property, definitely frotting. I know the property, like I know of aliens vaguely, but I'm not like a super fan of aliens. But the Marvel run that was, like 2000, 2022 to 2023, was a year. really good, like, like creepy good stories. Like the first arc was about this dude, like Gabriel Cruz, and he was a retired.

I know the evil corporation, like Wayland, Utah, and he like, know that like the name of that, like he was a retired security officer or something on, a way of the new tiny ship or colony. And pretty much his son is kind of like a freedom fighter and is against Wayland, Utah. And he goes up to the spaceship to try to like cause havoc and like, Gabriel goes to try to save his son. And that was like the premise of that.

Dave Is Scared (57:09)
I read it. Yeah, it was good.

Matt - CDWA (57:15)
like that year. It was good, good stuff. Like I really liked it.

Dave Is Scared (57:17)
Yeah, I loved it. My problem with that alien stuff for Marvel is what Marvel always does, which is constantly, yeah, constantly.

Matt - CDWA (57:22)
They reboot it and killed it, right? Like it restart. Yeah. And I was like, perfect jumping off point. Like I'm good. Like that's what happened. And it took a couple months and I stopped reading it and stopped. I was getting in paper and everything and I stopped. you want me to just do my second honorable mention? I don't, I don't remember a lot about this, but it was really, it's so great. I don't remember anything about it. Yeah. But it was the dark mirror arc.

Dave Is Scared (57:38)
Yeah, sure, yeah.

Okay. Hard self.

Matt - CDWA (57:51)
Spoiler by Scott Snyder and Jock. It was Detective Comics, issues 871 to 881 if you read it digitally or you're going to get a trade. I just remember this being really good and it was super creepy because it involved James Gordon Jr. and he was like a serial killer and I didn't know anything about James Gordon Jr. but he ends up having a lot of mental issues and is very disturbed and is like a serial killer. And Jock's art was awesome.

because I was super into traditional superhero art and his art was a deviation and it fit this story perfectly. And Detective Comics, like there's been times where I really liked Detective Comics even more than Batman because it's like a detective comic. Like it's more like what Batman should like be like a detective and not like a crazy superhero in my opinion. yeah, this run was really good.

Dave Is Scared (58:40)
Sure, yeah

I have a few honorable mentions as well. First one is Bloodshot from Valiant Comics, but only the more recent editions of Bloodshot. Yeah, so not I wouldn't do the 2012 reboot of Valiant. I would do the stuff where we had when it was honestly was when they were starting to struggle and they were only doing like mini series here and there, and they've rebooted Bloodshot a bunch of times. But the more recent stuff that I have read.

Matt - CDWA (58:57)
What series? I said like a hundred.

Dave Is Scared (59:18)
It's basically a mix of sci fi action and like slasher revenge horror. It's incredibly gory. It's incredibly fucked up. It's kind of depressing. Bloodshot has like so many problems, like mental problems. But also when he gets like when he gets shot or blown up or like hurt really badly.

Matt - CDWA (59:36)
Yeah, you do.

Dave Is Scared (59:44)
The nanites that live in his bloodstream can rebuild his body, but to do so, they need protein. So there are all kinds of scenes in these comics where he is like, like his jaw is gone and like he's missing an arm and like his legs are all shredded. but he happens to like land in like a field that's got like farm animals in it. And he just like eats a cow raw to rebuild his body. there's so it's not true horror.

Matt - CDWA (1:00:05)
with a ca-

Dave Is Scared (1:00:15)
but it dips its toes in with some of the art style and just the way that they treat the character now. So I wanted to mention it. Also, I probably don't wanna mention this next one, but I'm going to, it's the crossed by Garth Ennis. If you've been listening to the podcast, you know there's no love lost for Garth Ennis. This to me is like, it's almost horror porn.

more so than it is just horror. I don't really know what to say about it. It's the most depraved, awful shit I've ever read. The crossed are, it's essentially like a take on like the zombie type of movie or comic. And then the crossed are your zombies in this world. And they're just like completely crazed. They have lost all of their mental faculties. They're horrifically violent.

Matt - CDWA (1:00:47)
Yeah

Yeah, it's pretty.

Dave Is Scared (1:01:14)
And their only purpose is to hurt and maim people who are not crossed yet. I've read the first volume and that's where I stopped. I don't know if I could have stomached more. This comic is still going. It has gone for. Yeah, it's now it's called like the crossed plus 100 or something. That was the most recent thing that they were doing. It was like set 100 years in the future. yeah, there's been tons and tons of crossed comics. I honestly don't know.

Matt - CDWA (1:01:26)
Yeah, it's like... Is it really?

Dave Is Scared (1:01:45)
Where you would even start from like a reading chronology perspective like obviously the cross volume one is where you start but then after a while there's multiple spin-offs and Then like set in the future. I don't i'm sure there's a reading chronology somewhere, but i'm not gonna bother Next up you may have heard of the tv show the strain Well, the tv show the strain is based on a comic of the same name by Guillermo del Toro one thing about me is

Matt - CDWA (1:01:53)
Yeah, there's minis and stuff.

I

Dave Is Scared (1:02:14)
If Guillermo del Toro is involved, I am fucking there. And I'm excited. I love Guillermo del Toro. That man's artistic vision is one of my absolute favorites in all of media. he created my favorite movie, Pacific Rim. He is responsible for that entire world. he's also responsible for the strain. The strain is

Matt - CDWA (1:02:20)
Why?

Dave Is Scared (1:02:43)
A take on the vampire lore. It treats the vampire as more of a virus. They still feed on humans, but they don't have like two fangs and like bite you on the neck and suck your blood. They've got like a long like. Tendril type thing that comes out of their mouth with like a little sticky thing at the end. Yeah, like it's such I honestly you don't have to read the comic.

Matt - CDWA (1:03:00)
Yeah, Prong. Hot dog prong.

Dave Is Scared (1:03:12)
Just watch the show. It's only four seasons. Phenomenal. It does meander a little bit and lose its way in season three, but I think it brings it back in season four. while I've seen some people complain about the way the series ended, I felt it had a very satisfying finish and I was okay with everything. I loved it. I'm also blinded by my love for Guillermo del Toro, so I'm horrifically biased.

And then my last honorable mention, the comic called Outcast by Robert Kirkman. What he did for zombies with The Walking Dead, he does for like the exorcist and sort of that style of horror movie, which is, you know, like phantasms and ghosts and ghouls and possessions and things like that. Not for you.

Matt - CDWA (1:03:42)
Mmm.

Nah bro, we're good on that. Nah, I'm good on that. I'm good on that. I'm good on that.

Dave Is Scared (1:04:05)
I read the first couple of trades about cast and I loved it. And it was one of those comics where I was like, all right, when this one's done, I'm going to buy all the trades so I can read it to its completion at my own pace. And then that fucker didn't end for a really long time and I kind of forgot about it. But I do want to go back and read it because I'm pretty sure it's it's finished now.

Matt - CDWA (1:04:12)
Get it.

He's got a good artist on that. Asa Seta, Kirkman and Asa Seta, yeah, that's right.

Dave Is Scared (1:04:28)
He does.

Is it still going?

Matt - CDWA (1:04:36)
I just looked for the art. I did not. I don't think so, but.

Dave Is Scared (1:04:41)
I gotta get that and read it if it's not.

Matt - CDWA (1:04:45)
Last issue looks like 2021. Still a good run.

Dave Is Scared (1:04:46)
Yeah, it ended in 2021. it's. I'm three years late to what I committed to doing, but I'll get I'll get to it. I'll get to it.

Matt - CDWA (1:04:54)
So with only 48 issues.

Dave Is Scared (1:04:57)
Yeah, it's not bad. So there you have it. Those are, I think. 1218 recommendations for horror comics. There's a little bit of everything in here. You got zombies, you got vampires, you've got possessions, you've got some light superhero stuff, you've got licensed properties, you've got it all. There's probably something here for you if you've been thinking about picking up some horror comics.

You can't go wrong with any of the ones that we've just listed out. Matt, thanks for helping me do this.

Matt - CDWA (1:05:29)
No worries. Thanks for coming up with an idea. was a good idea.

Dave Is Scared (1:05:33)
Maybe when we can't do this every year, because I'm not going to read enough horror comics in the next year that aren't on this list to talk about them. But yeah, maybe we'll do something Halloweeny next year too.

Matt - CDWA (1:05:37)
Yeah

Sure you can, just read all the Spawn spinoff books. Just read one. There's like, there's like probably 30 of them.

Dave Is Scared (1:05:46)
And I'm doing that. I'm not doing that in in in other podcast news. So we've been behind on the boys. We've now we've got a commitment. We're going to volumes 10 and 11 together for our November Boys episodes. We're going to finish. The boys on time in December with volume 12. So this is what I need. I need recommendations for the 2025 let's read.

So if anyone that listens to the podcast has an idea, you're have to join the Discord and tell us there and we'll take it into consideration. Also, if there are some horror comics that you like that we didn't talk about, tell us. You can leave a comment on the podcast itself, like in Spotify, you can leave a comment or you can tell us on our socials or you can join the Discord and tell us there. I'm always looking for new horror comics to read. I hate horror movies. I love horror comics.

So I'm always looking for recommendations.

Matt - CDWA (1:06:49)
It's tough.

Dave Is Scared (1:06:52)
So we'll be back in a week or two. I don't know. This is a back to back or we just released the boys seven days later. This comes out. So we want to get ahead of Halloween. We're committed. We're committed to at least two episodes a month. No matter what we've got some plans to get content in the bank. So you can count on us. Not too much. You can't count on us implicitly, but you can count on us more than you could have in the past. We're on an upward trajectory in terms of our.

Matt - CDWA (1:07:00)
Hitting our stride,

Money in the bank, baby.

Dave Is Scared (1:07:20)
how much you can count on a score is concerned. If you rate those types of things. So we'll be back soon. Until then, my name is Dave. Take care of yourselves everybody. Bye bye.

Matt - CDWA (1:07:29)
And I'm Matt.

Peace.

Dave Is Scared (1:07:37)
can't believe how many of these comics you just like read and didn't finish. Me too. Half this list of stuff we never finished.

Matt - CDWA (1:07:41)
I started them.

I started up and didn't finish up what is like American Vampire.