Comics
Review: ‘The Creep’ #3
With an intriguing main protagonist, The Creep #3 delivers an enjoyable crime tale with gripping plot twists. The storyline examines loneliness and isolation through the eyes of a disfigured loner. As he strays from the rest of civilization, the loner becomes cut off and drifts off into madness. It’s hard to escape feelings of melancholy and sadness while reading John Arcudi’s character driven crime story.
WRITTEN BY: John Arcudi
ART BY: Jonathan Case
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: November 14th, 2012
A pair of teen suicides has been causing a lot of grief in a small town. While no one else wants to get involved, a disfigured private eye, named Oxel Karnhus, finds himself investigating the seemingly solved case. Riddled with doubt, Oxel wonders if he will uncover the truth at the crime scene. With no help from the local police, Oxel finds himself in an unlucky and tough situation. As nighttime approaches, Oxel must wander through the freezing snow to discover the truth.
Dealing with a rare condition, Oxel suffers from acromegaly, an excess of growth hormones that causes enlarged physical features and height. Though he’s a grotesque man, Oxel is a deeply flawed and relatable protagonist. No matter how good of a person he is, Oxel is always seen as a freak. Because his mind is plagued with doubt and self-pity, Oxel might not realize the suicides are more than they appear.
If you enjoy classic crime novels as much as I do, you will definitely get a kick out of “The Creep”. Oxel is the anti-Mike Hammer, he is desperate for companionship from women rather than fending them off. Arcudi steers the mystery into different directions throughout the issue, leading up to a nice final few pages. By sticking to Oxel’s perspective, readers discover the important clues at the same time he does.
Jonathan Case captures the silent atmosphere and saddening loneliness that Oxel feels everyday. On Oxel’s bus ride, Case uses wide shots of to enhance Oxel’s yearning for acceptance. Oxel has no one to talk to as he is surrounded by empty seats. Outside the bus, not a single person is around and the mountain range represents how detached he is from reality. As Oxel walks into the dead zonbe of the woods, his radio is completely useless and his lonesomeness because all the more potent.
With the lack of dialog during the dream sequence, Case is able to draw upon Oxel’s constant fear of failure without words. Flashes of Oxel’s past and present crash into one another as they reveal his darkest fears. Case illustrates a surreal hallucination when Oxel imagines what happened before the suicides.
With a spectacular final few pages, “The Creep” #3 provides ample reason to see how the mystery is resolved in the concluding chapter.
Rating: 4/5 skulls
Reviewed by Jorge Solis
Comics
‘You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive’ – IDW Dark’s Next Horror Comic Will Make You Question Reality
Five friends. Four houses. One perfect life. Bloody Disgusting is excited to exclusively announce You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive, a brand new horror comic from IDW Dark.
From Eisner-Nominated writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, and rising horror artist Heather Vaughan, You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is described as a “paranoia-laced, socially-conscious, horror mystery that will leave you questioning reality, and reveal that this crafted world is more of a nightmare than the idealistic dream they were expecting.”
Phoebe Joplin has never questioned the world her parents built: a secluded community where she and her friends were raised to be smarter, stronger, and better than anyone else. No distractions. No dangers. No secrets. Until the night of their graduation.
When one of them dies under impossible circumstances, Phee starts to pull at the edges of her perfect life—and what she finds is something far more terrifying than she ever imagined.
Because this place isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a cage. And no one who discovers the truth ever leaves it alive.
Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing (Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface, Star Trek: The Last Starship) co-write the upcoming IDW Dark horror comic, featuring art by Heather Vaughan.
Jackson Lanzing said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting, “You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is in many ways a spiritual successor to our last creator-owned horror, The Principles of Necromancy – a dive into the promise and consequence of playing god with the blood of innocents. But the Hivemind book this reminds me of most is Clayface: One Bad Day. This is a deeply human story with intensely raw emotions – five best friends and their five mysterious parents, tearing one another apart for the promise of some impossible glory that’s waiting just beyond their darkest actions. We’re thrilled to be bringing this story to life with our long-time partner in crime, editor Heather Antos, at IDW Dark – and we’re particularly excited to give our Clayface fans a new, brutal and emotional horror made just for them.”
Adds Collin Kelly, “We’re deconstructing a feeling that seems universal these days; our elders have a death grip on their power, without any intention of giving it up to the generations that come next. YNLTPA is about growing up with the limitless potential of the future… and realizing how much it’s a lie we’ve been fed to keep us under the yoke of the past. Bringing this brutal experience to life is our artist and co-creator, Heather Vaughan, who brings an incredible amount of humanity to our cast. But it’s in our youthful leads that Heather’s art really shines – you are going to fall in love with these young people, even as they go through the worst experience of their lives. What we’ve all crafted together is going to be tragic, painful, but above all else, sincere – with a future so uncertain, there’s only one thing we can trust: you’ll never leave this place alive.”
“Some horror stories are about monsters in the dark. YNLTPA is about realizing the monsters raised you,” previews Senior Group Editor Heather Antos. “Working with Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly on this series has been a dream in the darkest possible way. They’ve built a story that’s layered, brutal, and deeply emotional, and every issue gives artist Heather Vaughan opportunities to push the art into places that feel both haunting and deeply personal. Some horror comics will keep you up at night…this is one that will stick with you for years to come.”
The first issue of You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive goes on sale October 14, 2026! Make sure to pre-order at your local comic shop by September to guarantee a copy.
Exclusively check out the various covers for Issue #1 down below.
IDW Publishing’s horror imprint IDW DARK features comics like A Quiet Place: Storm Warning, Smile: For the Camera, The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, The Twilight Zone, Event Horizon: Dark Descent & Event Horizon: Inferno, and more.
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