'Creepy, spooky, and downright terrifying': Joe Worley releases second horror comic anthology
"Death Itself, Vol. 2" includes work by Worley and fellow Wichita artists Dustin Parker and Suspicious Glaze. It's on sale later this month.
A little girl turns to her mother for comfort after a nightmare and regrets it. Two astronauts on a mission to Jupiter leave behind an Earth made unrecognizable by alien invaders. A paranormal investigator follows his first good lead into madness. And a monstrous little line cook dreams of taking his weekend bogeyman gig full-time.
These characters inhabit the pages of “Death Itself, Volume 2,” a 36-page horror comic anthology edited and produced by two-time Riverfest poster design winner Joe Worley. It’s the second in what he hopes will be a yearly series, a product of a collaborative process that stems from the belief that “the best and most interesting art comes through the process of collaboration and bringing as many diverse voices into the conversation as possible.” The result of this ethos: four stories impressively distinct in topic, tone, and visual style, unified by “a seam of the creepy, spooky, and downright terrifying.”
In “The Bedtime Story” (written and illustrated by Joe Worley), a little girl's mother begins the titular tale: “Once there was a little girl who lived in a cave. You may think of a cave as not a very nice place to live, and you would be right.” Worley deftly differentiates between the “real” little girl's world and the “story” of the cave, using heavy, solid lines for the former, exaggerating perspective to pull the girl's bedroom door far away from her bed as she huddles in fear after a nightmare. The cave girl's world is made of softer lines and shading, rounder shapes and flatter perspective. “I wanted there to be an innocent children's-book-like quality to the bedtime story being told, with creepiness of the reality of the situation just starting to seep into it,” Worley says. As the wholesomely macabre story of the cave girl's search for a friend comes to a happy ending, a pair of textless panels reveal the nasty truth of the situation.
Joe Worley wrote and illustrated “The Bedtime Story," which features two distinct visual styles.
“The Leviathan” (story and penciling by Joe Worley with inks by Dustin Parker) starts as a chipper news anchor breaks the news of “massive explosions downtown.” While he urges his audience to stay tuned for updates, a giant, twisted mass of flesh and limbs erupts from the ground and wreaks havoc upon the populace. Meanwhile, two astronauts depart on a two-year mission — but soon find themselves stranded in space, cut off from Earth after a fateful decision to destroy the ever-growing creature with nuclear weapons unleashes a force even more destructive to human civilization. For this story, Worley chooses a panel layout more common in manga than Western comics, spreading its narrative across three horizontal panels per page, with inset panels highlighting relative moments of stillness. The character design of the Leviathan itself is great, both plantlike and insectile, reminiscent of The Thing or the title monster from Gretchen Felker-Martin's 2024 horror novel “Cuckoo.”
Panels from "The Leviathan," in which a strange monster comes to town. Story and penciling by Joe Worley with inks by Dustin Parker.
Told through photos, collage and handwritten journal entries, “Suspicious” (story by Worley and Suspicious Glaze, photography by Worley with assistance from Nicky Rocho) is about a local paranormal investigator trying to solve one last case. The more he gets involved, the creepier things get. The photographed backgrounds shift from an untidy desktop and clues connected by thumbtacks and string to dead flowers, bones, fungus — as if the story itself is decaying — until he loses himself entirely.
In "Suspicious," Suspicious Glaze and Joe Worley tell a story about a paranormal investigator using photos,collage and handwritten journal entries.
This is probably my favorite story in the anthology, despite being the least traditional comic: suspenseful environmental storytelling that I'd love to see expanded to book length.
Finally, bonus story “Side Hustle” (written and illustrated by Worley, based on a character by Farley Charwell and Carlos F. Palomino-Davila) is a chatty, fun, slice-of-life comic about a line cook whose true passion is bogeymanning: “There's nothing I'd rather be do'n than creep'n and kill'n,” he says. “It's not profitable yet but I'm getting close. I can feel it!” Again, Worley blends two art styles to show the narrator's two professions: while the restaurant kitchen is washed-out gray, the bogeyman's fierce exploits are shown in sharper outline, a familiar metaphor for any creative person stuck in a dead-end day job.
The Details
“Death Itself, Volume 2”
Worley will have copied for sale next weekend at Planet Comicon in Kansas City, March 21-23. The comic will also be available at Vortex Souvenir and on Worley's Etsy shop. Follow @death_itself_comic on Instagram for updates.
Anna Andersen has written professionally for 20 years. They have a husband and three cats named Brains, Hamburger, and Twinkle.
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