Through the Woods

After reading the work on the author's website, I decided to buy this book for a horror-loving friend's birthday gift. But since I ordered it some time in advance I'll freely admit I read it all first! He, of course, loved it (and forced it upon other horror fans). People seem a little torn on their opinions of this, so all I can do is say what I think. First of all, the art is unique and great and very chilling. Of course it is a drawing but (and this will sound odd) it LOOKS like drawings, like somebody skillfully scribbling down their memories of the macabre. It's reminiscent of a dark and twisted fairy tale (which I believe is mostly the point). I quite enjoy the style. If you aren't sure you'll like it, try the 'look inside' function on Amazon or go to the authors website to get a better feel for her. As for the stories, I'm not going to take them one by one but rather a general impression. There's a short intro and epilogue and (unrelated) stories between. Although 5 stories may not seem like a ton you get quite a bit of content. I saw some complaints that the stories didn't really have an ending and I guess for the majority that is true. I personally felt like they ended, but it is correct that maybe only one (or two?) had a concrete "this is what happened the end" type of ending. The majority of the stories show a scenario, what happened, and a hint of what might (or might not) be the outcome and leave the reader to wonder or decide. I like that sort of thing. If you do not, perhaps you won't be fond of this book. Some people said the book wasn't scary. I thought it was plenty scary, although I can't recall having any nightmares over it or anything. It definitely brings a feeling of dread and I love creepy foreshadowing pictures where you're like "Eck, what's going to happen?!" and then reveal pictures where you're like "Oh geez, nooo! What and why?!" Gore is present, but it is not a gore fest. There is some body horror, but that's not what the book is. Perhaps I'd categorize it as existential horror, but that doesn't feel right either. Every story is different, so they don't fall into a clear category. All in all yes it was scary enough to please me and the intended horror-loving recipient. I know this will sound like I'm repeating myself but if you still aren't sure, check out the author's comics online. As a small side note, the book in hardcover is sufficiently hefty and good quality. There is a nice, textured dust jacket that comes off to reveal the regular cover, which is smooth and matte. The pages are nicely colored and a nice thickness as well. The first copy I ordered had a wrinkly manufacturer's defect on the cover but I sent it back and got a replacement from Amazon fairly quickly and without incident.

Right off the bat, this book sets the dark and dreary tone that courses throughout the whole of it via handwritten text set atop highly contrasting visuals laid atop pure blackness. I've read a decent number of horror comic books and graphic novels before, all of them with different approaches taken (from the 'Twilight Zone'-Inspired "Underwater Welder" to the heavily stylized "30 Days of Night"), but this is the first one I've read where I've been able to say "this is beyond a doubt a horror book" right from the first page. The visuals are terrifyingly beautiful to say the least, and the hand-written dialogue laid out in the negative space of each page helps to intensify the unease in the reader that is so clearly sought after by the author. This book is a collection of five short horror stories, depicting different people from a very wide range of time periods, social statuses, and general walks of life coming face to face with supernatural horrors. Each of the stories, save for the fifth one, end on such an ambiguous note that the reader has to wonder if the protagonist of each story really encountered something terrible or if it was all in their own heads, which in my opinion makes for the best kind of horror. Engaging the reader by making them really think about what they just read/saw is something only the best stories are capable of. The aforementioned fifth short story contained in this collection is not as ambiguous as the other four, but it does end with a highly suspenseful cliffhanger, as all good horror should. The art, as mentioned before, is very striking and beautiful, but it was the panel layout that truly caught my eye. I'm a sucker for unique panel layouts in comic books and graphic novels that challenge the reader to think outside of the box and follow the flow of the story more naturally, rather than the traditional stack of boxes that an overwhelming majority of stories in this medium employ. The second story contained in this book, "A Lady's Hands are Cold," particularly encapsulates this layout method in a truly beautiful way, and was the highlight of the book, in my eyes. If I were to gripe about anything in this book, it would be that is was simply far too short and I wanted so much more. I highly, highly recommend that anyone who is a fan of the graphic novel medium, horror stories, and even the classic fairy tales as told by the Brothers Grimm pick up this volume and read the other online material from the creator. I know I'll be following Mrs. Carroll's work from now on.

Its a good book over all. i read it at my schools library and thought I'd pick up a copy. Came damaged probably should have ordered hard covered because of that. Not to made just a warning.

There are so many different ways to create horror, especially in comics. If you’re Richard Corben, you go with surreality, cheesecake, and backwoods decadence. If you’re Bernie Wrightson, you go with lifelike detail and emotion. If you’re Mike Mignola, you go with thick lines and hints of antiquity. If you’re Junji Ito, you go with body horror, spirals, and fish. If you’re Emily Carroll, you go with subtly complex simplicity, negative space, vivid colors, and fairy tales. Emily Carroll is an artist who publishes many of her horror webcomics online. Only one of the stories in this collection — the masterful and near-legendary “His Face All Red” — is available on her website. The rest of the tales in this book are gloriously new and wonderfully diabolical. We get “Our Neighbor’s House,” in which three young girls are left alone in a winter storm — until they encounter a strange man with a broad-brimmed hat and a full-face smile. We get “A Lady’s Hands Are Cold,” a ghostly variant of the Bluebeard legend. We get “My Friend Janna,” in which two friends dabble in spiritualism and discover something spectral and predatory. And we get “The Nesting Place,” in which a girl visits her brother and discovers that his wife is hiding a gruesome secret underneath her skin. Carroll does an amazing job of creating stories that seem both timeless and ancient, and utterly new and shocking. I think my favorite story in this one is the first — “Our Neighbor’s House” — because it never shows you anything horrific and lets your imagination do all the heavy lifting — which I still think is Carroll’s greatest strength. But that doesn’t mean the others aren’t all fantastic, too. “My Friend Janna” brings us subtle terrors we’re not even sure if we can see clearly and definitely can’t possibly understand. Is Janna being haunted at all? What’s the significance of the pulse inside the ghost? And “A Lady’s Hands Are Cold” is more gruesome but also a slower burn. The song sung throughout helps a story already rooted in the past feel even older, like it’s something pulled up from antiquity. “The Nesting Place” is the tale that seems to break most of the rules one expects from Carroll’s work — it’s much more modern, there’s more dialogue, less omniscient narration, and the horrors are downright gory. But I loved the hell out of this one, too. The surreal shapeshifting monster in this story has horribly human motivations, and that makes the story more powerful and more frightening. If you love horror, beautiful artwork, splendid little stories, and fears both subtle and shrieking, both chilling and gore-caked, you'll want to pick this one up.

Was delighted at how quickly and what good condition it arrived. Rarely has horror been illustrated so effectively and simultaneously so endearingly. Emily Carroll's understatement with text and stylization with characters and environments blends into some of the most haunting narratives it has ever been my morbid pleasure to read. Her style has since been a bit coopted by such media as Amazon instructional videos and her stories have scarcely lost their impact for it.

THIS IS SUCH A GOOD HORROR BOOK I SWEAR. IM SO SAD THERE ISNT ANY SEQUELS TO THIS BOOK. READ ITTTTTT ITS SOOOOOOOOOO WORTH IT!!!! 🌲🌲🌲😱📖📖📖

This book was okay, many of the stories were fine but overall I was not super impressed. I think the art style is nice but overall was mid in storytelling.

Emily Carroll is a storyteller, in the most primordial sense of the word. All of her illustrated gothic/horror stories feel like a conjuring of campfire tales told with a dash of folklore, urban legend and heady doses of fright. What makes this a particular accomplishment is that many people (like me) would have first discovered Carroll via her webcomics, scrolling through the panels of her stories, which are made no less terrifying for their original screen medium. But now, for the first time, Carroll has gathered those webcomics in a book – ‘Through the Woods’ is her debut graphic novel collection of old and new stories. I’ve been a fan of Emily Carroll’s webcomics since first stumbling across her website many years ago. I remember finding and falling in love with her work, even before I really got into the comic scene with the likes of ‘Saga’ and ‘Ms Marvel’. I don’t think I even really understood that Carroll was a comic artist back then – when I thought comics were all Batman, Superman and not much in-between. I think I just thought of her as a writer-illustrator who scared the beegeesus out of me with the story ‘His Face All Red’ (which is still my favourite). There are five stories in this collection, plus an introduction and conclusion. ‘Our Neighbour’s House’ tells the tale of three sisters left to fend for themselves when their father does not return from his hunt, and what happens when a man in a wide-brimmed hat starts visiting them in the dead of night. ‘A Lady’s Hands are Cold’ has a ‘Bluebeard’ feel, when a young woman goes hunting through her new husband’s house for the source of a mysterious song. ‘His Face All Red’ is my personal favourite, from Carroll’s original webcomics series. It tells the tale of a man who has it on good authority that the person claiming to be his brother is an impersonator. ‘My Friend Janna’ is about two friends who get into the medium business; contacting spirits of people’s deceased loved ones. ‘The Nesting Place’ introduces us to Bell, who is staying with her brother and his strange fiancée while she’s on school break … but discovers something terrifying in the woods near the house. Carroll is a great gothic storyteller, but more than that she’s a wonderful short-story writer. She knows how to pack a lot into just a few sentences, and has mastered the art of building to a climax – really hitting home with great one-liners in particular. All of her stories feel like they fit on either the folktale or urban legend spectrum – either seeming like something harking back to medieval times (like ‘A Lady’s Hands are Cold’ reminding of the French folktale ‘Bluebeard’) or they feel urban legend in that “a friend, of a friend of mine” sense (like ‘The Nesting Place’). The other thing I love about Carroll is that her illustrations often look like old-school children’s book illustrations, and that seems to make them feel all the more sinister. Some of them have quite a Miroslav Sasek or J.P. Miller look – but often the bright colours and round-faced characters are at odds with the creepy text. Not surprisingly, Carroll has cited children’s books as a big inspiration for her – from Charles Keeping to Andrew Lang (“Essentially any book that gave me nightmares when I was a kid is a driving force behind what I make now.”) Carroll has been published in anthologies and her webcomics have made her quite famous (in fact, Carroll is illustrating the graphic novel adaptation of Laurie Halse Anderson’s ‘Speak’, due out in 2016) but ‘Through the Woods’ is her graphic novel debut … but it definitely won’t be her last.

The stories mostly seem like folk tales, despite being original (?). They are simple and often a bit pointless like real folk tales are, but there are also obvious depths and teachings if you want to look. the illustrations are also deceptively simple and match the stories well. this seems like a book worth buying and reading again to me.

Beautiful book with some cool, spooky stories. Interesting art, love it

This was a great read, and its a book on my shelf that I revisit fairly frequently - I would definitely recommend if you have a soft spot for the creepy. Each tale is intriguing in its own way and, although short, leave a larger impact than you would expect. My personal favourites are probably His Face All Red and Nesting Place. The rhythm in the language gave the stories an old, fairy-tale like feel. The artwork is fantastic. Emily Carroll has a distinct style and knows exactly how to create atmosphere with colour and light, at times the artworks melding with the black panelling around them to create deep shadows and the silhouettes of horrible creatures. Probably not good for young children, but this definitely seems like the kind of thing I would have enjoyed when I was a little older, and something I enjoy I lot now as an adult!

Es recomendable conocer lo básico del inglés para entender enteramente las historias, eso de primeras. Emily Carroll nos trae con Through the Woods varias historias parecidas a los creepypastas con un toque diferente. Algunas historias te dejaran con un final abierto y quedaras con una duda o con alguna idea de que pudo haber pasado, armaras y finalizaras tu la historia dependiendo la información que tu recogiste de la historia (aunque probablemente debamos fijarnos mas en los detalles gráficos) Tiene un arte inigualable, magnífico y único, y aunque odio las comparaciones, cada historia me daba añoranza y recuerdos a Over the Garden Wall, con esto ya se podrán imaginar la calidad. Los dibujos son sencillos, bonitos y tienen una extraña y bonita relación con el tipo de historia que se cuentan, es increíble. Yo adquirí la versión de pasta blanda y esta tiene relieve y texturas en las ramas de la portada un detalle del cual estoy bastante sorprendido. No dudes en adquirirlo.

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