The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings

    (Dark Horse, 2003)
™ and © Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

This book delivers what it promises. It’s just that what it promises may not be what readers expect.

Here are eight stories — seven in comics and one in illustrated prose — on the subject of hauntings. And they’re not bad. But readers might expect them to be a little more scary.

They’re variously humorous, insightful, thought-provoking, suspenseful, and other praise-evoking adjectives. They’re just not scary. (The prose tale, “Thurnley Abbey,” by Perceval Landon, is perhaps the most frightening.)

Mike Richardson’s “Gone,” illustrated by P. Craig Russell, reads like a slightly better than average B-horror movie in which one yells at the screen, “Don’t go in there,” but they do anyway. Milton Freewater Jr.’s “The House on the Corner” feels as if it belongs in The Big Book of Hauntings. The most innovative submission is Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s “Stray,” the tale of a haunted doghouse.

The strongest story may be Randy Stradley and Paul Chadwick’s “Lies, Death, and Olfactory Delusions,” although Mignola fans will be gratified to know that there is also a Hellboy tale in this volume.

Rounding out the package is an interview with a séance medium. Apparently, there are different types of mediums. (Media?) It’s actually pretty informative.

This collection will be an enjoyable book for fans of the genre. Why it was released nowhere near Halloween is a mystery.

— Jack Abramowitz
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#1 (Hardcover Edition by Gary Gianni)

August, 2003
Cover Price: $14.95
No copies available 		Mike Richardson, P. Craig Russell, Mike Mignola, Perceval Landon, Scott Allie, Uli Oesterle, Milton Freewater Jr., Randy Stradley, Evan DorkinP. Craig Russell, Mike Mignola, Gary Gianni, Paul Lee, Uli Oesterle, Lucas Marangon, Paul Chadwick, Jill Thompson