Comics
Monkeybrain Monday Review: “High Crimes” #1
Monkeybrain comics don’t specialize in anything save for quality books. “Monkeybrain Monday” showcases some of the digital titles this small publisher has to offer. This week’s entry may not be in print, but the fear is very real on the pages of “High Crimes.”
Christopher Sebela takes a familiar concept and twists something new into the heart of the story. The result is cooly refreshing like mountain air. It has a chill sense of dread with a protagonist who makes death his business, a supporting character who just can’t escape her past, and just when you thought it was a by the numbers murder mystery the antagonist bursts onto the scene and changes everything. This is how you write crime comics, folks.
WRITTEN BY: Christopher Sebela
ART BY: Ibrahim Moustafa
PUBLISHER: Monkeybrain Comics
PRICE: $0.99
GET IT HERE: http://www.monkeybraincomics.com/
Its no secret that Christopher Sebela’s “Dead Letters” was a resounding success last month. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that’s what brought me here, but inside this comic isn’t the makings of a great crime writer, its an already great crime writer doing his thing.
Haskell Price and Zan Jensen are working literal cold cases. They take to mountains and dig up lost bodies in an attempt to trace their past and sort out their affairs. Of course they come to dig up the wrong man and involve themselves in a massive conspiracy.
“High Crimes” does an excellent job at taking a familiar concept and throwing it into an unfamiliar world. The things you come to expect with the genre are all here, but they have to be explained in radically different ways. Something as simple as a lopped off hand seems to be the most important piece of the puzzle.
Ibrahim Moustafa has bold and clean art that manages to make the dizzying peaks of the book look as threatening as the gun-toting goons. He has a style with a thicker line weight that reminds me of Michael Walsh. His colors are bold but appear to be diluted and a little washed out. He can also draw one hell of a frozen body, but that’s beside the point.
“High Crimes” is an incredible debut issue that spins several plates at once without faltering. It’s as impressive as it is engaging and manages to keep my interest despite being another crime story. Yet, it’s unique setting and complicated and morally ambiguous characters add a lot of heart and intrigue to the story outside the allure of a dead body. The idea of risking your life just to bill the survivors and remind them of the person they lost is wonderfully morose.
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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