Review: Consensual Violence by Del James, Illustrated by Giulia Brusco Arjuna Susini

banner that reads The Comic Vault

cover of Consensual ViolenceConsensual Violence by Del James, illustrated by Giulia Brusco Arjuna Susini
Dead Sky Publishing (November 25, 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Del James is a meat-eating, pro-choice, sober atheist. He writes horror fiction, screenplays, and music. As a lyricist, James has cowritten songs with groups such as Testament, The Almighty, The Outpatience, and Guns N’ Roses, including two songs on GNR’s Grammy-nominated Use Your Illusion album. James has directed several music videos and written live television for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. His newest graphic novel, Consensual Violence, explores the dark underbelly of Lucha Libre wrestling.Continue Reading

Cover Artist Soo Lee on Bride of Rocky Horror

banner that reads The Comic Vault

cover of Bride of Rocky Horror by Soo Lee
Soo Lee cover for Bride of Rocky Horror

Soo Lee, a Bram Stoker Award–winning cover artist, is one of the talents involved with Bride of Rocky Horror, which is now on Kickstarter. Cemetery Dance spoke with her about her background with Rocky Horror, the franchise’s legacy, and how horror comics have influenced her work.

Be sure to stick around after the interview for a special Bride of Rocky Horror preview!

Continue Reading

Review: The Pulse Remains by Rob Grimoire

cover of The Pulse RemainsThe Pulse Remains by Rob Grimoire
Undertaker Books (August 2025)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent

In a Southern Gothic novel, the past returns to haunt the present. Emphasizing moral bankruptcy and degeneracy, particularly of the upper classes, the genre has traditionally been dominated by white people and white stories — William Faulkner, Flannery O’Conner, and Michael McDowell. 

That tradition often omits or elides the contributions of Black authors: Toni Morrison, Zola Neale Hurston, Octavia Butler, S.A. Cosby, Tananarive Due, and Alexis Henderson. Like their white counterparts, these stories usually include traditional Southern Gothic tropes: the past intruding on the present, the moral and spiritual corruption of the elite, an emphasis on landscape and setting. Continue Reading

Review: Take Up Your Skin and Others by Jennifer Crow

Take Up Your Skin and Others by Jennifer Crow
Self-Published (November 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Jennifer Crow is grateful for friends whose words, artwork, and photography inspire both poetry and hope. Her work has appeared in a number of print and electronic venues over the years, most recently in Not One of Us, The Wondrous Real, and Abyss & Apex. Her newest chapbook, Take Up Your Skin is available directly from her or free to subscribers of her Patreon page.Continue Reading

Review: The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine

cover of The Dead Husband CookbookThe Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine
Sourcebooks Landmark (August 2025)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin

The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine is a worthy follow-up to the author’s motherhood-horror and debut novel, Delicate ConditionDelicate Condition inspired season twelve of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story: Delicate, starring Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian.

The Dead Husband Cookbook is another exploration of the daily horror of the female experience. However, it’s less body horror than you might expect. It’s a gritty mystery, each reveal more twisted than the last. I had a really tough time putting this one down.Continue Reading

Stephen King: News from the Dead Zone #244

Stephen King News From the Dead Zone

Richard Bachman has had a very good year for adaptations. Previous to this year, it had been nearly thirty years since one of his novels was turned into a movie and now, within a span of several months, two Bachman books have turned up on the big screen with stellar casts. And even his wife (widow?) is getting in on the action. Read on!

Continue Reading

Review: Moan by Junji Ito

banner that reads The Comic Vault

cover of MoanMoan by Junji Ito
VIZ Media (October 2025)
Reviewed by Danica Davidson

Junji Ito, a popular horror manga creator in Japan, has been getting increasingly known in America. More and more of his horror works are being released in English, with the most recent being Moan, a short story collection. The first few stories run on the long end, and then there are a couple of shorter pieces.

Each story shows off Ito’s masterful artwork. He knows both how to draw characters beautifully and how to set a mood. The stories also showcase Ito’s penchant for weirdness, creepiness and mystery.Continue Reading

Folio Society Editor on Publishing Haruki Murakami, Horror, and More

banner graphic that says Cemetery Dance Interviews

The Folio Society is doing an illustrated edition of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese novel about a hitwoman and a dangerous cult. Cemetery Dance spoke with editor Sophia Schoepfer about the publisher’s involvement with horror books, why they decided to take on IQ84, and her favorite horror book she’s worked on so far.

1Q84 Volume 1

Continue Reading

FREE PREVIEW: Phantom Constellations by Daniel Braum

banner that says Cemetery Dance Free Fiction

front cover of Phantom ConstellationsPhantom Constellations is Daniel Braum’s fifth full short story collection of dark, strange tales, exploring the metamorphic tension between the supernatural and the psychological, out now in trade paperback and eBook from Cemetery Dance Publications. Each of these stories, set in locations around the corner and around the world, evokes the Twilight Zone sense of the unreal and that mysterious, unsettling ambiguity found in classic weird and horror fiction.

It is a book of stories of haunted people, ghosts, and the Phantom Constellations all around them, bravely — and sometimes blindly — traversing the phantasmagoric happenings and psychological challenges in situations full of danger, uncertainty, grief, and tragedy, alongside a sense of hope, longing, mystery, and wonder. Appearing in the collection are four never before published stories written exclusively for the book, along with ten more of Braum’s tales including from the Shivers anthology series and a wealth of hard-to-find publications from around the world.

In today’s post is one of the original stories from Phantom Constellations titled “The Exorcist’s Red-Haired Daughter.”Continue Reading

Review: ADAK by Keith Minnion

cover of ADAKADAK by Keith Minnion
White Noise Press (August 2025)
Reviewed by Dave Simms

When is an apocalypse novel not an apocalypse novel? When it’s ADAK by the incredibly talented Keith Minnion. ADAK shares some ingredients with Contagion, The Thing, and the best of the action-adventure novels of the ’70s and ’80s. It’s a thriller novel at heart that marries the theme of Michael Crichton with Preston and Child — intelligent, but never slamming the reader with scientific details that make readers’ heads spin.

Continue Reading

Review: MrBallen Presents: Where Nightmares Live by MrBallen and Andrea Mutti

banner that reads The Comic Vault

cover of MrBallen Presents: Where Nightmares LiveMrBallen Presents: Where Nightmares Live by MrBallen and Andrea Mutti
Ten Speed Graphics (September 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Better known as “MrBallen,” John B. Allen is a former U. S. Navy Seal, the founder of the multi-platform content company Ballen Studios, and the creator and host of the popular podcast MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories. Allen uses his platform to give back and founded the MrBallen Foundation with the mission to honor victims and support families of heinous crimes through education, training, and financial support.

Andrea Mutti began his career illustrating DNAction for Xenia Edizioni, Sergio Bonelli Editore, and Star Comics. He’s worked with Marvel, DC, Vertigo, MadCave, Stormking, Dark Horse, IDW, Image, BOOM! Studios, and more. His titles include Maniac of New York, Bunny Mask, Rebels, Batman Eternal, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. He’s a member of the National UFO Center and resides in Sarasota, Florida. Continue Reading

What Screams May Come: The Autum Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi

banner What Screams May Come by Rick Hipson

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi
Tor Nightfire (September 2025)

The Synopsis

U.S. cover of The Autumn Springs Retirement Home MassacreBrimming with dark humor, violence, and mystery, The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is a blood-soaked slasher sure to keep readers guessing until the very last page.

Rose DuBois is not your average final girl.

Rose is in her late 70s, living out her golden years at the Autumn Springs Retirement Home.

When one of her friends dies alone in her apartment, Rose isn’t too concerned. Accidents happen, especially at this age!

Then another resident drops dead. And another. With bodies stacking up, Rose can’t help but wonder: are these accidents? Old age? Or something far more sinister?

Together with her best friend Miller, Rose begins to investigate. The further she digs, the more convinced she becomes: there’s a killer on the loose at Autumn Springs, and if she isn’t careful, Rose may be their next victim.Continue Reading

Review: Nightmuse: Poems of Speculative Darkness by Scott J. Couturier

cover of NightmuseNightmuse: Poems of Speculative Darkness by Scott J. Couturier
Jackanapes Press (November 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Scott J. Couturier is a Rhysling-nominated poet and prose writer of the weird, liminal, and darkly fantastic. His work has appeared in numerous venues, including The Audient Void, Spectral Realms, Tales from the Magician’s Skull, Space and Time Magazine, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and Weirdbook; his collection of Weird fiction, The Box, is available from Hybrid Sequence Media, while his collection of autumnal & folk horror verse, I Awaken In October, is available from Jackanapes Press. His newest collection of speculative horror poetry, Nightmuse, is available on Jackanapes Press. Continue Reading

Interview: Rodney Barnes on the Dark History of Crownsville

banner that reads The Comic Vault

cover of CrownsvilleFor Crownsville, a new five-issue comic from Oni Press, creator Rodney Barnes took a cue from his past. The actual Crownsville Hospital Center used to be referred to as the “Hospital for the Negro Insane of Maryland” and has since shuttered. Barnes talked with Cemetery Dance about his personal connection to the hospital, the dark stories around it, and the importance of knowing history.Continue Reading

Review: The Graveyard Club by R. L. Stine and Carola Borelli

banner that reads The Comic Vault

cover of The Graveyard ClubThe Graveyard Club by R. L. Stine and Carola Borelli
Boom! Studios (October 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

R.L. Stine, of Columbus, Ohio, is one of the best-selling children’s authors in history. His Goosebumps and Fear Street series have sold more than 400 million copies around the world and have been translated into 32 languages. He has had several TV series based on his work, and two feature films, The Goosebumps Movie (2015) and Goosebumps 2: Hunted Halloween (2018), starred Jack Black as R.L. Stine himself. Just Beyond is his first-ever series of graphic novels. Bob lives in New York City with his wife Jane, an editor and publisher. The Graveyard Club is his newest graphic novel.Continue Reading