Puffin Graphics: Frankenstein


Gary Reed - 2005
    But when his creature first stirs, he realizes he has constructed a monster. Abandoned by its maker and shunned by everyone who sees it, the monster turns on its creator and haunts Dr. Frankenstein with murder and horrors to the very ends of the earth. Artist Frazer Irving's cinematic and moving portrayal of the doctor and his creation is sympathetic and powerful.

The Mystery of Cloomber


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1888
    To his fellow residents on the remote western coast of Scotland, Major Heatherstone’s behavior seems far from orthodox. Spurning all attempts at friendship, he instead becomes a recluse in Cloomber Hall, forbidding his children even to leave their home. Yet unbeknownst to him, they strike up a friendship with the neighboring Hunter Wests, who slowly begin to learn the cause of the Major’s paranoia and his fear of the fifth of October. As September draws to a close, and as they hear of the mysterious arrival of three Buddhist monks, they can only watch in vain. It seems the Major’s secret will not be laid to rest until vengeance is done. Scottish-born writer and novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes; among his other works is The Tragedy of the Korosko.

She: A History of Adventure


H. Rider Haggard - 1886
    The journey is triggered by a mysterious package left to Leo by his father, to be opened on his 25th birthday; the package contains an ancient shard of pottery and several documents, suggesting an ancient mystery about the Vincey family. Holly and Leo eventually arrive in eastern Africa where they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful "She" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" and who has a mysterious connection to young Leo. The story expresses numerous racial and evolutionary conceptions of the late Victorians, especially notions of degeneration and racial decline prominent during the fin de siècle. In the figure of She, the novel notably explored themes of female authority and feminine behaviour. It has received praise and criticism alike for its representation of womanhood. (From Wikipedia)

No Longer Human


Junji Ito - 2019
    I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.Plagued by a maddening anxiety, the terrible disconnect between his own concept of happiness and the joy of the rest of the world, Yozo Oba plays the clown in his dissolute life, holding up a mask for those around him as he spirals ever downward, locked arm-in-arm with death.Osamu Dazai’s immortal—and supposedly autobiographical—work of Japanese literature, is perfectly adapted here into a manga by Junji Ito. The imagery wrenches open the text of the novel one line at a time to sublimate Yozo’s mental landscape into something even more delicate and grotesque. This is the ultimate in art by Ito, proof that nothing can surpass the terror of the human psyche.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight


Brian Augustyn - 1989
    In an age of mystery and superstition, how would the people of Gotham react to a weird creature of the night, a bat-garbed vigilante feared by the guilty and the innocent alike? The very first Elseworlds tale re-imagines the Dark Knight detective in Victorian times and pits him against the infamous murderer Jack the Ripper.

The Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel


Renée Nault - 2019
    She serves in the household of the Commander and his wife, and under the new social order she has only one purpose: once a month, she must lie on her back and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if they are fertile. But Offred remembers the years before Gilead, when she was an independent woman who had a job, a family, and a name of her own. Now, her memories and her will to survive are acts of rebellion.Provocative, startling, prophetic, The Handmaid's Tale has long been a global phenomenon. With this stunning graphic novel adaptation of Margaret Atwood's modern classic, beautifully realized by artist Renee Nault, the terrifying reality of Gilead has been brought to vivid life like never before.

Lady Mechanika Vol. 1: The Mystery of the Mechanical Corpse


Joe Benítez - 2015
    Having no memory of her captivity or her former life, Lady Mechanika eventually built a new life for herself as an adventurer and private investigator, using her unique abilities to solve cases the proper authorities couldn't or wouldn't handle. But she never stopped searching for the answers to her own past. Set in a fictionalized steampunk Victorian England, a time when magic and superstition clashed with new scientific discoveries and inventions, Lady Mechanika chronicles a young woman's obsessive search for her identity as she investigates other mysteries involving science and the supernatural. This volume collects the entire first Lady Mechanika mini-series The Mystery of the Mechanical Corpse, including its prequel chapter The Demon of Satan's Alley, plus a complete cover art gallery.

Demeter & Persephone (Graphic Myths & Legends)


Justine Korman Fontes - 2006
    Demeter rules over a perpetual summer on earth, where crops, trees, and flowers grow in abundance. Persephone, young and beautiful, unknowingly attracts the attention of the lonely god of the Underworld, Hades. Hades kidnaps Persephone, and a frantic Demeter searches in vain for her daughter. Finally, Demeter retreats to her temple in mourning. The goddess's sorrow causes the crops to die and the ground to freeze. The first winter falls over Greece. As people begin to starve, the other Olympian gods and goddesses try to convince Demeter to accept a marriage between Persephone and Hades. But Demeter will not give up her daughter forever to the Underworld. Finally a compromise is struck: Persephone will stay with Hades for half a year (winter). When she comes back from the Underworld to spend half a year with her mother, spring returns to earth.

The Turn of the Screw


Henry James - 1898
    Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls... But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.

Haunting Violet


Alyxandra Harvey - 2011
    But they believe in her. After spending years participating in her mother's elaborate ruse as a fraudulent medium, Violet is about as skeptical as they come in all matters supernatural. Now that she is being visited by a very persistent ghost, one who suffered a violent death, Violet can no longer ignore her unique ability. She must figure out what this ghost is trying to communicate, and quickly because the killer is still on the loose.Afraid of ruining her chance to escape her mother's scheming through an advantageous marriage, Violet must keep her ability secret. The only person who can help her is Colin, a friend she's known since childhood, and whom she has grown to love. He understands the true Violet, but helping her on this path means they might never be together. Can Violet find a way to help this ghost without ruining her own chance at a future free of lies?

Oz: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz


Eric Shanower - 2009
    When Kansas farm girl Dorothy flies away to the magical Land of Oz, she fatally flattens a wicked witch, liberates a living scarecrow and is hailed by the Munchkin people as a great sorceress but all she really wants to know is: how does she get home?

Pretty Deadly, Vol. 1: The Shrike


Kelly Sue DeConnick - 2014
    Strange, Osborn) present the collected opening arc of their surprise-hit series that marries the magical realism of Sandman with the western brutality of Preacher. Death's daughter rides the wind on a horse made of smoke and her face bears the skull marks of her father. Her origin story is a tale of retribution as beautifully lush as it is unflinchingly savage. "It's a perfect match for the gorgeous, dizzying artwork in a sumptuous palette-overlaid panels add intricate choreography to fight scenes, and detailed, whirling splash pages beg for long-lingering looks. Couple that, along with a handful of Eisner nominations, with a multicultural cast of tough-as-nails women who all fight for their own honor, and this is a series to watch out for." - Booklist"It's ambitious and challenging (two qualities that are not often valued, but that probably should be), under a façade of violence and sacrifice. Rio's art is lush and detailed, and is more than capable of keeping up with the far-reaching story." - PW

Okko: The Cycle of Earth


Hub - 2008
    Okko and his faithful companions — the mysterious masked Noburo, Noshin the monk and young Tikku — arrive at the City of the Blasting Powder. While seeking a guide to help them cross the perilous chain of the seven monasteries, they meet a skillful warrior: Mow of the Wind. Okko and his companions seek the Forbidden Libraries of the Eighth Monastery on the Roof of the World, but the way is dangerous, and the ancient powers of the Earth demand a blood sacrifice when awoken.

Creepshow


Stephen King - 1982
    Graphic adaptation art by Bernie Wrightson.Contents:· Father’s Day · gs * · The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill [adapted from “Weeds”, Cavalier May ’76] · gs * · The Crate [Gallery, Jul ’79] · gs * · Something to Tide You Over · gs * · They’re Creeping Up On You · gs *

Monsters


Barry Windsor-Smith - 2021
    Bobby Bailey doesn’t realize he is about to fulfill his tragic destiny when he walks into a US Army recruitment office to join up. Close-mouthed, damaged, innocent, trying to forget a past and looking for a future, it turns out that Bailey is the perfect candidate for a secret U.S. government experimental program, an unholy continuation of a genetics program that was discovered in Nazi Germany nearly 20 years earlier in the waning days of World War II. Bailey’s only ally and protector, Sergeant McFarland, intervenes, which sets off a chain of cascading events that spin out of everyone’s control. As the titular monsters of the title multiply, becoming real and metaphorical, literal and ironic, the story reaches its emotional and moral reckoning.Monsters is the legendary project Barry Windsor-Smith has been working on for over 35 years. A 380-page tour de force of visual storytelling, Monsters’ narrative canvas is both vast and deep: part familial drama, part political thriller, part metaphysical journey, it is an intimate portrait of individuals struggling to reclaim their lives and an epic political odyssey across two generations of American history. Trauma, fate, conscience, and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the most ambitious graphic novel of Windsor-Smith’s career. Monsters is rendered in Windsor-Smith’s impeccable pen-and-ink technique, the visual storytelling with its sensitivity to gesture and composition is the most sophisticated of the artist’s career. There are passages of heartbreaking tenderness, of excruciating pain, and devastating violence. It is surely one of the most intense graphic novels ever drawn.