If you like horror or scary stories then stop reading this review right now and buy Malevolents: Click, Click. I was very impressed with Malevolents as it managed to do something that so many TV shows, cartoons, movies and other comics have tried to do before… tell a scary campfire story. Now granted the story doesn’t actually take place around a campfire, but it does have that vibe. If you’ve never told scary stories or ghost stories around the campfire or just late at night then you’ve missed out on a great slice of storytelling. The thing is, there’s a feel and an atmosphere to telling a story or hearing one in that environment. People who have experienced it know what I mean and so do the people that have tried to capture it in the genres I mentioned previously. That’s why they’re trying to capture that experience and atmosphere, but they fail. They fail because they all take you out of the story either with the dialogue or the visuals, but they keep trying.
Malevolents: Click, Click begins in a creepy rundown house with four students standing around an old Ouija board. One of the male students is of course the tough guy and goads the others into touching the board, but one of the girls doesn’t know if it’s safe. They kind of exchange stories about the place and it’s clear that this is a rite of passage of sorts for them. That is until one of the girls begins telling a story she heard about a previous student that came to the room with this very same Ouija board.
That’s all you get is the set up because it would absolutely ruin the story for me to tell you anymore. I want to tell you more I really do. I want to spoil the hell out of it so that you know exactly why it’s so damn good, but I can’t. It’s just too fucking good to do that.
The writing does a lot of the work of the story. It’s not that the art does nothing, it’s just that the art is showing us different visuals than the narrative. They’re very much so working hand in hand, but they have different roles.
The writing fills the role of the campfire story as our young girl tells one of the most interesting horror stories I’ve heard in a great while. I cannot express enough just how fucking creepy it was. I made the terrible mistake of reading it at 2 in the morning and let me tell you… that was a goddamn mistake. What made it worse was that I mimicked something from the story and gave myself an honest chill. Thankfully I was dead tired and fell asleep quickly because this shit would have kept me up all night otherwise. I can’t wait to see what writer Thom Burgess comes up with next because Malevolents: Click, Click was amazing.
On the flip side we have the art which is very Ben Templesmith inspired with its coloring. It’s not as off-putting as Templesmith’s style which is a good thing because you don’t want to mime it too much. Instead Joe Becci cracks that balance of detailed, darkness and that eerie coloring technique that Templesmith uses. The protagonist of the story is fucking creepy. I know that I’m defaulting to that a lot, but it’s honestly my first emotion when thinking about the story again. There’s a visual device that Becci uses a few times and it only gets creepier as the story progresses making it downright scary at the end.
Buy this book. I’m really tempted to just tell you everything and I’ve come to the close of my review. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year and by far the best horror story I’ve read in a long while. The Dead is the last thing that comes to mind and while the two are nothing alike, the quality and care of the story puts them on par with each other. If you like horror. If you like campfire type stories… well I already told you to just go buy the book at the beginning of the review… you should have listened.
Score: 5/5
Malevolents: Click, Click Writer: Thom Burgess Artist: Joe Becci Price: £4.50 BUY HERE