Recent Writing

Frank Barbiere and Stephen Rhodes Game Out In "ZERO INSTANCE" [Interview]

Macabre Daily: What was your biggest challenge in translating the interactive nature of gaming to the medium of comics?Frank Barbiere:  Working to keep things feeling authentic while still being exciting. Stephen and I both work in the games industry and have seen things blatantly misrepresented more times than we can count; while we are telling a fictional story and there are plenty of fantastic elements (and an alt future), we wanted our actual experience to push on the themes and overall tone...

Spiritual Warfare Gets Gnarly In “CHAPLAIN” [Review]

Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers- the worst these guys can do is kill you. Jigsaw, Leatherface- they might torture you first, but once you’re dead, you’re dead. When you’re dealing with more supernatural horrors, the stakes get much higher. “Chaplain”, a new religious horror graphic novel written by Brad Sun and his brother Revered Wesley Sun, focuses on the battle for the immortal soul. Raúlo Cáceres, one of the great modern horror illustrators, brings the Sun brothers’ disturbing fears to the pag...

Muddled Found Footage Film "MUFFLED" (2026) Frustrates More Than It Frightens [Review]

Grace Thompson is long gone but not forgotten, and her childhood friends Nora and Harper are coming home to find her, over a decade after she vanished into thin air. “Muffled” is a found footage docu-horror in the vein of “Strange Harvest” and “Horror in the High Desert”, but with very little of those films’ inspiration. The true-crime approach to found footage is hard to pull off, and despite some good efforts by the cast, “Muffled” fails to effectively harness the subgenre to materialize any t...

Big Red Takes A Tragic Trip To Italy in “HELLBOY AND THE B.P.R.D.: THE MONSTER OF NIVOLA” [Review]

Sardinia, Italy, a Mediterranean paradise of gorgeous beaches, delicious Italian cooking, and ancient architecture. For some, it would be a wonderful island getaway. For Hellboy, who is there monster hunting, it will be a notably bad day in a career full of bad days. The monster-fighting career of Hellboy has been full of wild tales of adventure and excitement, but it’s also riddled with gothic tragedy. “Hellboy and The B.P.R.D.: The Monster of Nivola”, from writers Mike Mignola and Christopher...

What Capcom Needs to Nail In "RESIDENT EVIL: VERONICA" [Essay]

Secondly, Chris Redfield needs to have a real and consistent personality. There’s no debate that portrayals of Chris Redfield in the past decade have frustrated many fans. From his strange and baffling new look in “Resident Evil 7” to his gruff, borderline antagonistic relationship with Ethan Winters in “Resident Evil: Village", Chris’s angry, depressed nature has verged on self-parody from “Resident Evil 6” onwards. Early hints of chain-smoking and pill popping indicate that we will see Chris’...

“MISTER MAGIC” Is A Cathartic Exploration Of Creepy Children’s TV [Review]

“Come with me, and you'll be… in a world of pure imagination. Take a look, and you'll see into your imagination.  We'll begin with a spin, traveling in the world of my creation. What we'll see will defy explanation…” Everyone has that children’s movie or television show that was pretty wonderful and brilliant, but also creeped them out. Mine, of course, was a VHS copy of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. For those of us who grew up with TV as a default household appliance, the impact of c...

"MUTTER: DIARY OF A MOTHER" (2026) Evolves From Pregnancy Into Parenting Horror [Review]

Fans of slow, grim, existential horror rejoice, there’s finally a 2026 horror movie for those who love the cinema of despair. Alphan Eşeli is pulling very few punches as he puts Gül through the wringer across “Mutter’s” ninety-seven minutes. This movie is very light on fun and very heavy on emotional and physical agony. “Mutter” is a cinematic cry of pain and anguish, a primal scream into the uncaring void. This is one miserable monster movie. Admittedly, it’s fairly light on the monster part. D...

Mel Gillman Gabs About Their New Crowdsourced Graphic Novel "THE GOBLIN THRONE" [Interview]

MD:  Your use of color is so specific, I was reminded of the girl in the red coat in "Schindler's List" and the bright yellow monster, Roark Jr., from "Sin City.” How did you decide when to use color?MG: I’m always using color as a storytelling element in my work!  Every comic I make starts with a limited color palette, and I’m always thinking about how to use color to emphasize certain emotions I want the reader to feel.  In “The Goblin Throne”, the dominant colors in the palette are fairly dar...

Blizzard Conjures An Evil Epic In “DIABLO IV: LORD OF HATRED” [Review]

After three years, twelve seasons, over a billion dollars in revenue, and an unfathomable amount of demons slain, Diablo IV’s second expansion has arrived, and it feels an awful lot like a finale. Blizzard Entertainment has overhauled nearly every mechanic in the game, created an entirely new playable religion, and lovingly crafted a dozen new hours of astonishing story content. After the highly divisive “Vessel of Hatred” expansion, Blizzard has gone back to the drawing board and put in conside...

The Deadly Dentist Faces His Fate In “THE DEVIL’S LUCK: A HAILSTONE STORY #5" [Review]

The bodies are mounting, blood has been spilled, and the formerly innocent dentist Timothy  Beacon finds himself in utter darkness. Fear and greed have consumed him, and the light at the end of the tunnel is growing smaller. Rafael Scavone and Eduardo Ferigato’s violent and crazy finale of “The Devil’s Luck: A Hailstone Story” isn’t what I expected, but it’s a bold and bloody finale for a standout series.“Doc” Beacon is California dreamin’ on a cold winter’s day, with a pot of gold, melted teeth...

"CARMEN RED CLAW: BELLY OF THE BEAST #4" Closes Out The Series With A Bang! [Review]

The final issue of Carmen Red Claw’s debut series has arrived, and it’s a wild finale that takes this weird west story’s supernatural elements to the max. Rae Allen and Mike Mignola bring Carmen fully into Mignola’s world of gods and monsters with “Carmen Red Claw: Belly of the Beast #4”, pitting Carmen against ancient evil that she’s never seen the likes of before.Thrown overboard from a flying train, and left for dead in the desert, Carmen Red Claw is beaten but not broken. Her quest to stop t...

Matt Kindt Returns With Mesmerizing "MIND MGMT: NEW & IMPROVED" [Review]

Welcome back to the world of psychic spies and mind-boggling conspiracies as Matt Kindt’s “MIND MGMT” returns, now as “MIND MGMT: New and Improved”. Part reboot, part sequel, this twisty, mind-bending story of mental warfare is back and possibly even better than ever. Kindt’s bold, ambitious and singular vision is as strong as it was the first time around, with more of a modern millennialist mindset. [Spoilers for the original run of MIND:MGMT lie ahead]Years since the fall of MIND MGMT and the...

Matt Kindt Brings Madness And Machine Guns To The “MIND MGMT / FORT PSYCHO FCBD 2026 SPECIAL” [Review]

Kindt goes all in on the “MIND MGMT” story, which is a delightfully bonkers journey through the completely insane comics world that he’s created in his magnum opus series. Speaking directly to the reader before putting them in the comic and then taking them back out again, Kindt flips through a dozen perspectives in a dozen pages, zapping around in a mindbending metanarrative that almost defies description. Kindt’s story warps so fast and so hard that it takes a very close read to try and wring...

A Happy Holiday For Hellboy? “HELLBOY IN LOVE: BLACK EYES” [Review]

Oh, it is a rare pleasure to see the morose big red man with the red right hand experiencing any kind of joy at all, even if temporary. Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden’s new Christmas tale of Hellboy’s romance with Anastasia Bransfield is a warm and sweet ghost story featuring our favorite half-demon navigating relationship challenges while solving a classic haunting. Illustrated by Alex Nieto, it’s a cozy bite of romance and mystery to spice up the summer. “Hellboy in Love: Black Eyes” is s...

Slaughter Across The Sands And Seas: "Lands Unknown: The Skinless Man #2” [Review]

The concluding issue to Ben Stenbeck’s brutal tale of “The Skinless Man” is another violent and expansive issue of murderous adventure. The somewhat nebulous story takes its ruthless and sinister energy to a variety of scattered places. Ben Stenbeck crafts a tale of a craven and somewhat confounding world, as the saga of “Lands Unknown” continues.Issue #2 finishes the journey of ruthless warlord El Kubra, also known as “The Skinless Man” for his, well, lack of skin. El Kubra is on the trail of a...

Matt Kindt Exposes Manipulation, False Memories, And Making "MIND MGMT: New and Improved" [Interview]

MD: “MIND MGMT: New and Improved” somehow feels even more paranoid and cynical than its predecessor. Detective Swan's scathing opening monologue feels incredibly real. I realized I genuinely don’t know the name of the man who fired on the President just two years ago. How much of that monologue purely reflects Detective Swan's mind, and how much is a commentary on our real-world current collective consciousness?MK: I’m just making it up as I go here. Trying to have fun. Let’s all just take it ea...

Stephan Franck Spills The Beans On The Final Chapter Of Neo-Noir "PALOMINO" [Interview]

Stephan Franck kindly fielded some questions from Macabre Daily about the finale of “Palomino”; his responses are below.Macabre Daily: “Palomino” ended its lengthy tale in 1995. Are you feeling the wave of 90s nostalgia or more a dim view of the decade?Stephan Franck: “Palomino” is first and foremost a super fun murder mystery and a gripping character study, but it all plays out in a context that I would call the End of the American Century. The ’80s, where we start the series, are often seen as...

Malice In the Pit And Palace: “The Crown: A Tale of Hell #2” [Review]

The family from hell is back in this concluding issue of Mike and Todd Mignola’s demonic royal court comedy. The lies and treachery pile up fast, and bad blood leads to backstabbing as Hellboy’s half-brothers vie for their father’s favor and the chance to win the throne. Who will rise and who will fall? Who will wear the crown?Hellboy’s half-brothers, Gamon the warrior and Lusk the scholar, are locked in competition for the throne. Lusk is their father’s favorite, but schemers are afloat at Cast...

Lee Loughridge And Marz Jr. Gossip On High School Super-Horror "The Adequates" [Interview]

Macabre Daily: Lee, is that a “Mean Girls The Musical” joke I detected with the Elite? There’s a fairly unique set of cliques in “The Adequates”. How did you decide on Jocks, Goths, and having Super-Nerds be at the top?Lee Loughridge: There were so many cliques in my high school, I definitely wanted to showcase them in this series.  Marz came up with the idea of the Elites, the super-smart nerds who rule the school. It was way funnier to have the Jocks as the Elites’ lap dogs instead of them bei...

Dave Baker And Nicole Goux On Carving "Punk'n Heads" [Interview]

Macabre Daily: If you could each pick one album for a reader to listen to pair with Punk’n Heads, what would it be?Dave Baker: Oh, man. Probably either “Walks Among Us” by the Misfits or “Glow On” by Turnstile. I was listening to both of those records while working on this and there’s a bunch of hidden little things gems in the book that reference them. I also like “Her’s” a lot. Different genre, I know. But I’m sure there’s something in there as well. So, Songs of “Her’s” would be another solid...

Mike Mignola Takes Readers On A Mystical Journey In “Uri Tupka and the Gods" [Review]

Mike Mignola is a singular voice and talent, and new adventures in the “Lands Unknown” have found him more hands-on with art and writing than fans have gotten in a long time. This new graphic novel is a work of beautifully grim mythology in the way that only Mignola can tell it, an eighty-page trek across a land of gods, monsters, bandits, and blasphemers. It’s a brand new story in a dangerous new world, but it has the old familiarity of a master storyteller sitting down at a campfire once again...

Writer DB Andry Dives Deep Into Oni Press' "Estuary" [Interview]

Who doesn’t love good aquatic horror stories? From ghost ships to Lovecraftian nightmares and good old shark movies, and everything in between. Next week, Oni Press will deliver “Estuary #1”, the first in a four-issue limited series. Oni Press describes it as “A chilling tale of secrets buried deep beneath the surf of the idyllic Pacific coast written by rising stars Tim Daniel & David “DB” Andry (“Crush Depth, Morning Star") with gorgeously atmospheric artwork by modern horror virtuoso Maan Hou...

Teamwork Makes The Zombie Dream Work In  “John Carpenter's Toxic Commando [Review]

Do you remember where you were, eighteen years ago, when those “Left 4 Dead” TV Ads aired? Zombies rushing through the streets, guns blasting, and the tagline: “It’s the zombie apocalypse. Bring friends”. Do you remember the first time you held out on the hospital roof in “No Mercy,” watched the plane crash in “Dead Air,” or started the fireworks in “Dark Carnival?” How about the first time you got grabbed by a smoker, tossed by a tank, or heard the weeping of a witch? Horror fans and gamers hav...

A Doctor In Darkness: The Devil's Luck #4 [Review]

Rafael Scavone and Eduardo Ferigato’s penultimate chapter of “The Devil’s Luck: A Hailstone Story” brings the action to a boil, as the body count rises and a mysterious stranger comes to town. Small-town doctor Dan Beacon finds himself sliding down into the deep end of a pool of blood. As in every issue of “The Devil’s Luck”, desperate times bring desperate measures, but the outlook is starting to get dire.“The Devil’s Luck: A Hailstone Story” follows the violent struggle over a set of gold teet...
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