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A review by thelilbookwitch
When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll
5.0
Full review on [my blog].
On a dark rainy night, a young lady is welcomed into a castle, a young lady who has come to murder a countess, like the many before her who never returned.
For those of you who may not know me, horror is not my thing. My one exception is anything Emily Carroll creates.
The blurb for this one is so short because this comic is so short, probably its only fault. I loved Emily Carroll’s Through the Woods arrangement of dark stories. She continues in When I Arrived at the Castle to create evocative niche horror comics that settle into your bones and leave you wondering, because as is her custom, she does not explain. To explain would be to take away the very element of what makes her macabre art so luscious.
When I Arrived at the Castle is colored in Carroll’s signature black, white, and red palette. Previous works have had hints of yellow or blue, but she stays strictly within those three shades for this comic. Her line art is simultaneously beguiling and revulsion inducing. The story, as always, feels like a sinewy fairytale – the original kind told to scare children into behaving.
There was a dark eroticism to this story as well that makes me glad none of the libraries who ordered it in my system mistakenly placed it into their YA collections (although the *gasp* nipple and cleavage on the cover would hopefully alert them of their error).
If all these things I mentioned above do not illicit an excited squeak from you, this is not the comic for you. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d recommend this as someone’s first exposure to her work either, since it’s just one story. Through the Woods is definitely a better jumping off point.
But, if what I mentioned above did strike a chord with you, and you haven’t read Emily Carroll’s works before, prepare to find a new author whose work begs to be revisited time and time again.
On a dark rainy night, a young lady is welcomed into a castle, a young lady who has come to murder a countess, like the many before her who never returned.
For those of you who may not know me, horror is not my thing. My one exception is anything Emily Carroll creates.
The blurb for this one is so short because this comic is so short, probably its only fault. I loved Emily Carroll’s Through the Woods arrangement of dark stories. She continues in When I Arrived at the Castle to create evocative niche horror comics that settle into your bones and leave you wondering, because as is her custom, she does not explain. To explain would be to take away the very element of what makes her macabre art so luscious.
When I Arrived at the Castle is colored in Carroll’s signature black, white, and red palette. Previous works have had hints of yellow or blue, but she stays strictly within those three shades for this comic. Her line art is simultaneously beguiling and revulsion inducing. The story, as always, feels like a sinewy fairytale – the original kind told to scare children into behaving.
There was a dark eroticism to this story as well that makes me glad none of the libraries who ordered it in my system mistakenly placed it into their YA collections (although the *gasp* nipple and cleavage on the cover would hopefully alert them of their error).
If all these things I mentioned above do not illicit an excited squeak from you, this is not the comic for you. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d recommend this as someone’s first exposure to her work either, since it’s just one story. Through the Woods is definitely a better jumping off point.
But, if what I mentioned above did strike a chord with you, and you haven’t read Emily Carroll’s works before, prepare to find a new author whose work begs to be revisited time and time again.