Comics
Review: “The Life After” #2
Spoilers: Lost the TV show was about Purgatory. There. Now you know. “The Life After” #2 goes head first into this story and tells readers this IS Purgatory. Get used to it. Who is in this middle ground for the souls? You wouldn’t believe me. I can hardly believe it and I read the book! Read on and see what is going on in this original new series from Oni Press.
WRITTEN BY: Joshua Hale Fialkov
ART and COLORING BY: Gabo
PUBLISHER: Oni Press, Inc.
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: 20 August 2014
Reviewed By Your Friendly Neighborhood Brady
If everyone around had committed something as tragic as suicide, would it lose its impact? Does it feel like prison if everyone is trapped together? Writer Joshua Hale Fialkov seems to give off that mood in this new series. Apparently even dogs can kill themselves and be trapped in limbo for it. It’s a fascinating idea on exploring this realm. I don’t know if it’s been explored before but this series is off to a very intriguing start. Regular guy Jude gets saved multiple times from multiple horrors by literary legend Ernest Hemingway. Yep. This book has all kinds of curve balls like everywhere.
Artist Gabo makes people killing themselves a very pedestrian thing in this middle world. Folks keep offing themselves in front of our lead characters. It looks odd which I think is the effect the creators are going for. Jude’s ability to help souls move on looks to be a major point to explore as the series progresses. Gabo’s mix of regular and surreal is a major help to such an ambitious story.
All of that plus the hook of “The complete history of creation in three pages!” has me intrigued enough to keep reading. This book is so out there, it’s worth your attention to see where it leads to next. Demons, aliens, dogs, management and upper management look to be interesting oddities to see in the coming months. Get into this book now and be ahead of the cool curve for once.
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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