MrBallen 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.
MrBallen Presents: Where Nightmares Live is a vividly illustrated graphic novel featuring nine spine-chilling stories — based on real events — of the horror that lurks within the unknown. These are presented as narrated by MrBallen himself, told as real crime ghost stories in a haunting way. From skin-melting encounters in Brazil to a ghost that stalks the English countryside to a bell ringing deep in the Arizona wilderness, MrBallen’s tales — four of which are exclusive to this graphic novel — span multiple centuries and expose bizarre, terrifying, and utterly unforgettable experiences of the unnatural world. Compellingly creepy and deeply researched, MrBallen Presents: Where Nightmares Live proves that sometimes our deepest fears are about the things we cannot see.
To aid the visceral storytelling and research, Andrea Mutti’s illustrations are exquisite. The linework is tight, but the colors are a wash of muted, at times chaotic, watercolors. This visual effect is used to heighten the unease and wariness of the tales themselves, creating a chaotic atmosphere for the reader. Between the art, the nightmare reality of the tales themselves, and the tightness of the collaboration between the author and artist, MrBallen Presents: Where Nightmares Live is an incredible anthology of short tales, based on real life, that belongs on the shelf of any fan of horror or true crime.
