Comics
Monkeybrain Monday Review: “The Remains” # 1
While Monkeybrain comics may not specialize in horror, they do specialize in quality comic books. For those of you looking to expand your palette this is “Monkeybrain Monday” showcasing some of the digital titles this smaller publisher has to offer.
Cullen Bunn has recently taken the comics world by storm with “Sinestro”, and the new “Magneto” ongoing from Marvel launching this week. “The Remains” follows two young girl’s horrific encounter after their struggling father decides to take in a rat-like drifter. The dusty art style of A.C. Zamudio lends the book a homespun feel that is filled with skittering scares.
WRITTEN BY: Cullen Bunn
ART BY: A.C Zamudio
PUBLISHER: Monkeybrain Comics
PRICE: $0.99
GET IT HERE: http://www.monkeybraincomics.com/
After reading his stellar short story in “In The Dark” it’s clear the man has an obsession. Cullen Bunn seems to revel in the world of rats. “The Remains” is comfortable in the dirt and grit. Getting low to the ground with a children’s perspective of a terrible and horrific plight.
Birdie and her little sister Abbie don’t know what to think when a rough looking drifter interrupts their playtime. He’s looking for work and their father’s more than willing to oblige. He’s a scarred and scary looking man. He smiles with a certain glint of malice, and from the right angle, he looks remarkably like a rat. Although Birdie is uneasy about all this, she knows her father needs the help, so she keeps quiet.
The girls are ordered to clean out the barn, and what lies in wait for them there makes for one of the most disgusting, engaging, and horrifying sequences in any horror book. If something like this happened to me as a child I think I’d be mute today.
This is just the beginning. Bunn builds a tale of horror wrapped in mystery. The girls don’t get a ton of development, and the characters are somewhat archetypal, but the drifter intrigues enough to keep interest. Something supernatural is going on, and it’s clear this drifter has everything to do with it. Just how it all fits together isn’t clear but the setup is tantalizing enough to tease dire consequences in the future.
Zamudio’s art has a homespun feel that really understands the environment of the book. Characters look weathered and tired. The drifter has an air of otherworldly personification, but only from the right angles. It’s the type of chilling stuff that’ll have you giving the book a second glance. The sequence in the barn is paneled in such a way that feels overwhelming and hopeless. Which only adds to the girl’s plight.
Bunn has crafted a simple tale of horror around a questionable love of rodents to create a chilling tale of lost innocence and threatening strangers. It’s straightforward in its setup and smooth in its execution. It may not do anything new for the genre, so to speak, but it’ll assuredly get under your skin.
Rating: 4/5 Skulls.
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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