Release #1 - Volume 1
148 pages
1: Volume 1
NSFW
24.6K views • Jan 11, 2023
A horror anthology of 17 individual stories exploring the theme of horror from many different angles. Fast-paced and gorey, slow psychological haunts, lighthearted & funny, climate collapse, and more!
HellToBreakfast 2 years ago
Great anthology! Some genuine frights in there. I think Gravestone Tree was my favorite, but really all hits.
Headypidgeon4180 2 years ago
@HellToBreakfast: I agree I love horror comics I wish there were more of them sometimes.
morpheus 1 year ago
I backed this on Kickstarter and it was a fun read! Though to be honest this is a pretty irregular anthology, which happens when you have a compilation from different creatives. There's some stories here that are AMAZING in every way (art, writing, lettering, etc.) and then there's others that honestly felt amateur. It made for a bit of a jarring experience to read something like “The Infant” or “A Little Piece of Me” and then reading “Beholden” which honestly had some pretty sub-standard art. The tone in the anthology was also pretty inconsistent, some of the stories did not even feel like horror (like “How the Devil gets you” or “NU-V (2U)”) and a couple seemed like they were either aimed at kids or preteens (“The Cauldron” and “When you’re not looking”). When you’ve got an anthology that has some comics that have nudity and gore and others that are for younger audiences in the mix you wonder if they didn’t put too much thought on who they were making the anthology for and what their target audience was. I’ll also say some of the writers did not do a good job writing short stories. Some of these are not even full stories but only a premise or idea for a story (like “Embrace Me” or “She Who Weeps”). A story needs to have a beginning, middle, and end, and many of these just stop at the beginning without making it worth our time or giving us a conclusion. In my opinion editorial should have done a better job keeping an eye on the creative teams and making sure this anthology was more cohesive, but given that it’s Band of Bards’ first anthology book in a catalogue that’s been mostly outstanding is pretty commendable. Highlights of this anthology were “The Infant”, “A Little Piece of Me”, “Post Traumatic Credit Scene”, “The Glow Up”, “Angler”, and “The Bodega”. Overall, this was a good read but I hope they do a better job at being consistent in the future. Thanks!
RapidFireReviews 8 months ago
Thoughts…
Since getting back into comics a few years ago I have found that one thing that the comic media excels at is horror. There is something about the comic format that lends itself perfectly to all the various genres of horror tales. From the Static a great representation of that, this collection has a myriad of stories all different styles of storytelling and illustration. We get creature features, psychological scares, body horror, comedic horror, and some emotional tales as well. The whole book is a really great collection of short stories with some really interesting takes on the horror genre and there are some really interesting art style choices used throughout also.
Some stories that really stood out to me were
The Cauldron, this had a great feel to the story, nice and light hearted and had a very solid visual to the whole thing. There is a one shot set in this same world and it really does a great job of capturing a real fun spirit to a horror story.
A Little Piece of Me, this story went full on body horror, this one really didn’t hold back at all. A great story with some really stand out panels, and an ending that is not for the faint of heart.
Post Traumatic Credit Scene, this story had a very twisted feel to it, definitely one on the psychological horror side while at the same time giving us some of the most gore filled moments of the book. This story also gives us one of the more thought provoking stories of the anthology, with the way trauma stays with us.
The Unfortunate Consequences of Being a Time Traveler, this was my favourite story in the book. When it hit me what the story was really about I was blown away. The story and the illustration style went really well together as well. For me this story was a whole different and very real type of scary.
This is only a small sample of the stories that are in the anthology and all the others are really great reads. I think this book will have a different impact depending on the reader, each story will hit differently and that is what is so good about this type of book, everyone will find their story within it and at the same time get to see writers, artists and letterers that they have never experienced before. Horror can be a very personal thing as what scares one person will be fine for the next person, in this volume there will be that story for you that will make a connection with you. I would give this anthology a 9 out of 10, this is a really great presentation of how horror works so well in the comics format both from a storytelling perspective and a visual one.