GUEST IN THE HOUSE HC

I’m a huge (and picky) fan of horror, and I often feel let down by the offerings we get in comics. Violence, death and gore ≠ horror, for me, and so when I read E.M. Carroll’s first offering, Through the Woods, I knew that this was a very special cartoonist with an incredible grasp on what horror meant, and could be. A Guest In the House follows Abby, newly married to the town dentist but still desperately lonely, she attempts to be an adequate step parent to her new step-daughter and fulfill the role she feels like she’s supposed to as “wife”. But the more she learns about her new husband, the less things seem to add up, and then there’s the added complication of the presence she’s started noticing around the house. Genuinely, writing this blurb gave me the chills all over again; there’s some panels and pages in this book that made me go cold. Their first (full length) book since Through the Woods continues Carroll’s particular flavor of horror and it’s just as creepy and unsettling as you could want it to be, it’s understated and beautiful.