SHOOK! A BLACK HORROR ANTHOLOGY, coming soon from Second Sight Publishing on Kickstarter, delivers 160 pages of short horror stories from some of today’s finest Black creators. These are just some of those stories.
The Details
- Written by: Bradley Golden, John Jennings, Rodney Barnes, and more
- Art by: David Brame, Charlie Goubile, Flavio Cortes, and more
- Colors by: Alex Bradley, John Jennings, David Brame, Flavio Cortes, and more
- Letters by: Jeremy Marshall, Hector Negrete, and more
- Cover art by: Assorted
- Comic Rating: Mature
- Cover price: $39.99
- Release date: March 2023 (estimated)
Is It Good?
For your reading pleasure today, we were lucky enough to receive three short stories featured in the upcoming Kickstarter project SHOOK! A BLACK HORROR ANTHOLOGY. To be clear, the anthology has many more stories than we’ll review here, but this review should give you a good flavor of what’s in store.
Anthologies are famous (notorious?) for being a mixed bag of collected works. Thankfully, the three samples we received are varied and unique in terms of quality and presentation, but they all have an interesting tale to tell and leave you wanting a little bit more.
If a short story can give you enough content to intrigue you and leave you wanting more, it’s a success.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
As with all our anthology reviews, we’ll touch on each short briefly and what or didn’t work.
Itchy Tasty
In the near future, a group of survivors hunts for supplies in the radioactive remains of a bombed-out New Orleans. If the flesh-eating cockroaches don’t get you, the mindless, radioactive vampires will.
This is a strong premise with an efficient, well-done setup. You get exactly what’s happening quickly and can relate to the escalating threat of monsters waiting around every corner. The weakness and strength of this short are in the art. The art is very stylized, giving off a wet, chunky, gory texture, but the stylized appearance is sometimes hard to figure out. In other words, the monsters look gross, but you can’t always tell what they look like.
The Breaks
A B-girl named Patirica reminisces about the purity and power of life on the dance floor as AIDS ravages her body. Now, as her life approaches a painful end, she’s paid a visit from the ultimate D.J. to show her what awaits her on the other side of the beat.
This short is impressively soulful and thoughtful. Viewed through the lens of music and dance, the writing and artistry work together in a tangible rhythm to reach a sad but hopeful crescendo. Technically, this short isn’t straight horror, but it’s the most emotionally powerful of the shorts in this review.
The Last March
A KKK Wizard makes the mistake of choosing the wrong man to lynch in the Mississippi woods in 1972. When the old man invokes a spell to raise the vengeful dad, the Klan’s and the Wizard’s time on Earth reaches a gory end.
Simple, straight, and to the point. Who doesn’t love a great schadenfreude story where the bad guy gets what he deserves? And, boy howdy, do these Klansmen wish they hadn’t come out to do their foul work on this night. The art is generally good, but the details are lacking in the backgrounds. That said, the art nails the expression of terror on the Wizard’s face, and that’s all that counts.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.
Final Thoughts
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SHOOK! A BLACK HORROR ANTHOLOGY collects terrifying, thrilling, and even thoughtful stories of horror told through the lens of the Black experience. The writing and art vary in terms of quality and presentation, but there isn’t a stinker in the samples we received, and more than one short is intriguing enough to want more.
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