Comics
[Comic Book Review] “The Ghost Fleet” #2 Is Complex, Absorbing Fun
“Ghost Fleet” is back for round two and it’s a knockout. Issue #1 intrigued me, a comic about big trucks goin’ fast and smashing shit on the surface but with the glimmers of something deeper. That something deeper is what issue #2 opens with and now it’s got me hook line and sinker. The mysteries are boundless and my questions are counting up to immeasurable levels. However, this never feels cheap or lazy, it’s a deep seeded mystery that becomes exponentially more exciting with every teenie-tiny tidbit and kernel of information.
WRITTEN BY: Donny Cates
ART BY: Daniel Warren Johnson
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: December 3, 2014
Reviewed By Torin Chambers
The opening scene alone has so much new information and new mysteries it’s almost staggering when you really think about it. I’m not even sure where to begin. A Senator named Roland Cohle walks down an industrial looking hall, wearing a red hooded cloak. He comes to a wooden door with an incredible design, it looks like something HP Lovecraft would think up, that doesn’t fit in with its surroundings. Possibly the facility was built around it?
Next to the door is a fingerprint analyzer that Cohle must use to gain access to “The Silhouette,” an ominous backdoor shady government cult name if ever there was one. Things only escalate exponentially from here. The room contains a raised platform, surrounded by a small lake of what looks like blood. On this platform there are numerous others dressed like Cohle sitting around a fire with a few armed guards overlooking them. On top of all that there’s a massive carving of what appears to be an owl overseeing everything in the room, their God/Master?
All of that happens in the first 3 pages, I can never stop reading Ghost Fleet now until I know what that was all about. Not that I wouldn’t read it regardless, you could take away all the intrigue and you’ve still got genuinely funny humor and balls to the wall action. Ghost Fleet is definitive proof that you can have stupid fun and tell a complex, absorbing story all at the same time.
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Torin Chambers is a rad dude from the nineties who does film stuff or something. Thomas the Tank Engine is his favorite transformer. Find him on Twitter @TorinsChambers
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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