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‘Fran Bow’ Resurfaces With a Chilling New Trailer
It’s been far too long since I last wrote about Fran Bow, Killmonday Games’ delightfully twisted 2D horror adventure game that will join Among the Sleep, Contagion and The Forest, among many others, on the growing list of crowdfunding success stories when it hits Steam on August 27.
This game is a perfect example of why I’m thankful for crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. They’re not perfect and there will always people who abuse them, but without these invaluable tools, we’d have a lot less promising games to look forward to.
I played the demo awhile back and immediately fell in love with its gorgeous hand-drawn art style and the nightmarish hidden world the young lead can only see when she pops one of her pills.
As the above trailer shows, its abundance of indie charm is hiding a sinister side that’s made even more unsettling because of how it contrasts with the colorful world and the quirky characters who inhabit it. This game cannot come soon enough.
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.
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