Today's Fresh Friday Features have buried secrets in the depths of their pages and it's up to you to solve them! From bizarre dolls made from living children to missing young girls and whodunit murder mysteries, there's hidden truth just waiting to be exposed. Can you solve these mysterious tales?
- Comic - Porcelain: Beryl’s life in the desert, living with her aunt and her cat, is relatively simple…until the day she finds and enters the Dollhouse. Stuck inside an ever changing mystery house that hunts children and turns them into dolls, Beryl goes on a psychedelic journey.
- Graphic Novel - Julycanthropy: When Alex, a young woman, goes missing in the dark woods. Derrick, her boyfriend, goes on a quest to search for her. What he discovers lurking in its shadows has a taste for flesh and minds.
- Manga - BLAZES: A girl named Charlene gets invited to the adventurer clan's exam. Her mother was a great adventurer, but she got murdered in cold blood by a mysterious individual.
- Webcomic - The Yearbook Club: follows the adventures of four tweens as they’re whisked to the past through their middle school library’s yearbook collection. Hollis Burncoat, Erin Bailey, William Durand and Snoozy Simmons solve mysteries and see familiar figures in their lives in a whole new light.
Porcelain, 180 pages - Published by ABLAZE, (cc/ @Ablaze)
First ABLAZE brought you the surreal, bewitching tale of Maria Llovet’s Eros/Psyche...now comes Porcelain. Beryl’s life in the desert, living with her aunt and her cat, is relatively simple…until the day she finds and enters the Dollhouse. Stuck inside an ever changing mystery house that hunts children and turns them into dolls, Beryl goes on a psychedelic journey where she must face the notion of her own limitations and move past them...before she becomes the building’s newest prey.
Story and Art by ABLAZE
A wild and topsy-turvy thrilling mystery! The artwork is absolutely insane and drop-dead goregous. With multiple issues already published, there's SO much to read here. Fans of Alice in Wonderland would also enjoy this!
Julycanthropy, 45 pages - Published by The Storyhunter Pack, (cc/ @Lord-Red)
When Alex, a young woman, goes missing in the dark woods. Derrick, her boyfriend, goes on a quest to search for her. What he discovers lurking in its shadows has a taste for flesh and minds. He would need to learn to survive and work with unlikely allies to survive. There are things within those woods that were never meant to be found. Written by Matthew B. Hafen and Illustrated by Mladen Celjuska
Story and Art by The Storyhunter Pack
I don't want to spoil this, but I'm always down for a good werewolf story! I had some suspicions while reading it, but the end result was definitely not what I expected. Let the fur fly and chase this mystery! It's great for any werewolf lover!
BLAZES, 19 pages - Published by Apollo11, (cc/ @iamapollo11)
The setting develops in a medieval-like world with full of magic and myths. A girl named Charlene gets invited to the adventurer clan's exam. Her mother was a great adventurer, but she got murdered in cold blood by a mysterious individual. However, that doesn't stop Charlene from becoming an adventurer…
Story and Art by GabikaComics
Blazes does a wonderful job ramping up the emotional weight. The cover immediately grabbed my attention, and the interior artwork, choreography is also well done. It's difficult to draw magic, especially the fight scenes. I'm curious who this mysterious stranger is? The killer? An ally?? We'll have to find out.
The Yearbook Club, 9 pages - Published by Very Big Comics, (cc/ @VeryBigComics)
The Yearbook Club is an all-ages comic that follows the adventures of four tweens as they’re whisked to the past through their middle school library’s yearbook collection. Hollis Burncoat, Erin Bailey, William Durand and Snoozy Simmons solve mysteries and see familiar figures in their lives in a whole new light with each and every issue. The Yearbook Club #1 takes the middle schoolers to 1996, where they arrive just in time to see their parents’ friendship fall apart! New student Erin learns about her friends as they try to find out who really sabotaged Sterling Burncoat, Jennifer Durand and Monica Miller’s science fair project and save their parents nearly 30 years of animosity.
Story and Art by Jesse Lundberg, Kristi McDowell, Margaret Lundberg, Marin
Ah the joys of being young and innocent... but my nostalgia doesn't remember the mystery busting part of that! Sounds like an adorable group of nosy kids! We called it "meddling" back in my day. It's an adorable comic with relatable moments.
That's all for now, but we'll have another set of Fresh Friday reading recommendations next week. You can also browse through our Featured Comics news section and add them to your Library for future reading!
Check out more amazing stuff from @ArtCrumbs below.
Did you get a chance to check out any of these fresh picks? If you enjoy any of these stories, don't forget to add them to your library, and share your thoughts in the comments below! You can also join our Discord server to talk with other readers and creators.