Comics
Review “Shutter” #1
Joe Keatinge and Leila De Duca breath new life into globetrotting adventure comics with their gigantic and imaginative world. Kate Kristopher may be bored with the world around her, but from everything we see, she has no reason to be. “Shutter” makes a solid effort to define itself in a genre carved out by timeless classics like The Adventures of Tintin and for the most part it succeeds.
WRITTEN BY: Joe Keatinge
ART BY: Leila De Duca
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: April 9, 2014
This comic begins by instilling a sense of wonder, adding a sense of bewilderment, and topping it off with a sense of casual complacency. You watch as Kate Kristopher is introduced into a very wild world from an incredibly young age and you’ll be in awe of the universe around her. She lives in a fantastic age filled with weird and marvelous creatures, but she claims her life is boring.
It’s hard to see. She has been on numerous fantastic adventures. The brief glimpses of her exploits that we’re treated too seem more exciting than I could possibly fathom. She’s Johnny Quest but grown up having saw enough to live a thousand lifetimes her world is far from ordinary, but doesn’t seem to faze her anymore.
The looming specters outside of the pages seem to characterize the story more that Kate herself. It’s a beautifully balanced script that shows something missing outside of the primal appeal of adventure, but it’s not quite clear what that something is just yet. It seems rooted in her relationship to her father, but surely there is more to it than that.
Leila De Duca will by all accounts blow you away. Her art is wildly imaginative and pulled off seamlessly. It’s actually quite stunning to see the scope of the world she has created here. Everything is completely outside the ordinary but manages to have a casual complacency about it. You’ll see a spaceman from 50’s science fiction serials sitting on the subway, and a business minotaur in a suit. Only to be juxtaposed by a swash buckling Kate swinging off a sinking ship as its attacked by a Chthulu like monster. It’s hard to fathom, but De Duca makes it look easy.
There is a lot about the power of childhood here on these pages. A child raised in constant danger comes to thrive off of it. They feel lost without it, and that certainly resonates with Kate. “Shutter” will surprise you. It’s not about all the beautiful and fantastic creatures on the page instead it’s an oddly heartfelt look at a woman’s loss of innocence and wonder in a world literally brimming with adventure.
Powerful and exciting with a flavor of the mundane “Shutter” sadly takes its time in this first issue to develop it’s characters and world a little too much without a real focus on what Kate’s story is actually about. For now though, #1 offers a tantalizing tease of the larger world to come.
Rating: 3.5/5 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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