*I was given an ARC of Little Visitor & Other Abductions in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Oni Press and Adam Szym for my copy of the graphic novel*
Synopsis:
The cast and crew of an obscure film recount a tragedy that occurred during its doomed production. A young girl searches for her father in the darkness of the desert and stumbles upon an otherworldly cocktail party. Two strangers nurture violent thoughts in a bitter, lonely child as his village’s harvest festival nears. Connecting these three stories is one horrific theme . . .
From cartoonist and illustrator Adam Szym comes a triptych of otherworldly science fiction horror stories about alien abduction and the negligence and malice that allows it to happen. Including the Ignatz Award–nominated A Cordial Invitation, Little Visitor, and a brand-new tale—Frolicker—this uncanny trilogy of graphic novellas is perfect for fans of The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and all things beyond our understanding.
Review:
I’m not a huge fan of anthologies but I love horror graphic novels so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check this out. As there are three stories, I’ll split this review into each story.
Story one – Little Visitor: This was the strongest, in my opinion. I loved the interview style dialogue but it did get a little confusing at times as I couldn’t remember which character was talking based on their appearance alone. However, I did really like the art style of this story. It felt a lot more stylised compared to the other two stories and the black and white style made sense for a documentary about a horror film.
The horror vibes were definitely strongest in this story as it was the easiest to follow. You can tell theirs something not quite right about the ‘little visitor’ the whole time and the slightly ambiguous ending ramped the creepiness up to one hundred.
Story two – A Cordial Invitation: This one was a little confusing. The tension built from the get-go, which I loved, but as soon as Luisa got to the party it seemed to dissipate as the narrative fell apart. I’m coming to realise that a lot of this graphic novel is left purposefully ambiguous but that doesn’t necessarily work in its favour. There’s no real explanation for why these people are at this party wearing weird masks. Also, why did the kids (also wearing masks but called them faces) react so weirdly to Luisa, who wasn’t wearing a mask. They ask her where her face is. So strange and never explained so I’ll never know.
You then have a weird time jump that takes you to before this story starts but that’s not very clear either. Suddenly you’re in Luisa’s dad’s perspective, which I hoped would shine some light on what’s going on, but not really. Basically, there’s a lot of weird stuff going on.
Story three – Frolicker: I’ll admit, I skimmed through most of this one. There was a lot of text and it all felt very disjointed. After reading the sections at the end of the graphic novel about how the author created it, I could see why. The author said there was no solid plan of where this story would go and that’s pretty obvious. It was pretty creepy but it took too long to get to the point. I feel like anthologies need to be quite snappy, otherwise I get bored really quick.
I did really like the setting of this one though. Think Little House on the Prairie but in space.
I had high hopes for Little Visitor & Other Abductions but unfortunately this wasn’t for me. I liked the creepy vibes and tension, and the art style was consistently good throughout, but the story telling was a little lacking.
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