I loved this. It had the absolutely messed up energy of a Joe Hill project while retaining the gorgeous angry gay power of Carmen Maria Machado. I loved El and Vee, I loved the art, I loved how scary and gross and sad it was. It fits neatly into the landscape of modern horror comics while centering the experiences of queer teen girls of color.

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Octavia (Vee) and Eldora (El) are high school seniors in the town of Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania. Their coal-mining town is plagued with sinkholes full of fire that filled the coal mines ages ago, and the holes and soot claim many lives throughout the town. Nevertheless, people can't seem to leave Shudder-to-Think, guilty of leaving their dead behind in shoddily marked graves empty of inhabitants, swallowed by even more sinkholes. Aside from the soul-sink that is the town, something else strange is going on that seems to affect townspeople intermittently - they forget whole swaths of time, hours, days, or more, and can't account for their whereabouts nor their actions. Vee and El enlist the the help of the local witch, who knows more about all of these strange phenomenon that she lets on. The truth is horrifying, and each victim of the forgetting disorder is faced with a pivotal choice - to keep forgetting, or to face the horrible truth of the nature of their town.

This story is part of the Hill House comics, where Joe Hill follows in his father's footsteps to promote horror stories. The Low, Low Woods is a very creep tale that doesn't end with what you think it will at all. Readers will be horrified, for sure, but not possibly in the Halloween-horror genre sort of way. The haunting mystery and blend of imperfect magic makes this a fairly unique story, but it isn't enough to overcome major plot twist that underpins Shudder-to-Think's way of life. DaNi's illustrations are fairly rough, but the coloring and jagged edges perfectly compliment the terrible things happening in Shudder-to-Think.

The Low, Low Woods is rated for Mature audiences, and it definitely is.

Sara's Rating: 6/10
Suitability Level: Adult

This review was made possible with a digital reader copy from the publisher through Net Galley.

I went in expecting a horror story, but what I got was an amazing parable about how men can be the worst. The art was gorgeous and played off the story perfectly. Highly suggested for all libraries!

This story is deeply affecting and centers violence to the female body (super content warnings), and the horror lens employed in this story creates a deep and meaningful exploration of the trauma our characters carry. I have yet to read Carmen Maria Machado's short stories in <i>Her Body and Other Parties</i>, but if the storytelling in her prose is similar to the depths present in this graphic novel, I must get to that collection sooner rather than later. Wow.

I'm glad I saved it for October because this one was unsettling and i loved it.
The art atyle was interesting if not unsettling itself. I loved the characters and the plot though. Definitely reccomend for halloween!

Eldora and Olivia are best friends. They go to the movies and at the end of the movie they can't remember anything from the movie. They are curious what happened to them. Are they like women of the past from their hometown that would act strange and forget things?
I enjoyed this comic very much and would recommend if you like strange things.

Trigger Warning - Implied Sexual Assault and Rape

I wish the art was a little more polished, I hate when characters look slightly different or something could have been a little detailed and seemed rushed. But the story was extremely interesting and kept my interest the entire time.

Two girls wake up in a movie theatre not remember any of the movie. They live in a small town that sits on top of a coal mine that has been burning for years. And ever since that mine has been burning weird things happen in town. Woman forget things, pieces of time they lost seemingly for no reason. But what the reason is, whether it be supernatural or natural is unknown. The girls set out to find out what really happened to them. And what they discover isn't what they were expecting.

Right off the bat I was pulled in by the Lgbtq+ characters and the POC found in the graphic novel. The colors found within were very interesting, but the drawings just did not work for me. It just seemed to distract me from the story bc of trying to figure out what I was looking at. The way the topic of sexual assault was dealt with was very interesting. I wish the art would have done the story a bit more justice.

'The Low, Low Woods' by Carmen Maria Machado with art by DaNi is a horror graphic novel from Hill House Comics, a new imprint from Joe Hill under DC Comics.

Shudder-To-Think is a coal town in Pennsylvania with a dark secret. Best friends El and Olivia wake up in a theater with a gap of missing time, and wonder what is going on. Along with the weird rabbits around town there is a woman with a deer head. There are also skinless men. There hunt will lead them to the town witch and a secret that some would rather keep unknown.

There is a lot to like in this story. It's got the feel of a novel, but the flow of a graphic novel. The characters are unique as is the setting. It all feels like pretty rich world building for only six issues of a comic book series. The covers are great and extra ones are included. I was less enamored with the story art, but it serves it's purpose.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from DC Entertainment and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

This is a different type of horror story. The kind that is truly terrifying to a woman. Do you choose to know, or to forget?

Great read for the Halloween season. Love the diversity of the characters and the small town story works great.

I thought that this story was ok. The art style is interesting, but it’s not really my favorite, at least it adds to the creepy atmosphere. The story itself I thought was quite original. I loved the LGBT representation.
I liked it, but there’s something stopping me from loving it. I just didn’t really connect to the story. Sometimes I found it a bit hard to follow in the way that it was put together. There were multiple occurrences of very quick changes in the story’s tone that I though felt and looked unnatural. Sometimes when a monster popped out of nowhere it just felt out of place with what had just been happening.
Overall enjoyable, but it just wasn’t that interesting to me personally.

The Low, Low Woods by @carmenmmachado Out now, new September 2020!

Rooted deep in what feels like a dark urban legend, dive into a decaying mining town where women have been losing their memories. Sinister magic, creatures lurking beneath the surface, and revenge all create this twisty tale including leading characters who are queer women of color! The artwork in this is so vivid and atmospheric that it really adds an extra layer to the entire story.

Really great story with great representation. A lot of graphic novels try to capitalize on diversity awareness, and it comes off flat and gimicky -- not so with The Low, Low Woods. It felt like an authentic piece of diverse and culturally relevant media. The artwork was beautiful and gritty, and the story itself was compelling. A great read!

Wow. This is truly haunting — horrifying, spooky, nauseating, gorgeous.

Loved the art, and idk if I can say I “loved” the story, but it will definitely stick with me. I’ll probably read everything Carmen Maria Machado ever does.

TW (spoilers here)
Sexual assault is the main one (on a massive scale). Also sexism, slut-shaming, homophobia & transphobia, memories being erased, pedophilia. And obviously, you know, horror stuff. It’s extremely rough on many levels, just know that going in. (The dog doesn’t die, though! And neither do the queers).

Thanks to Netgalley, DC, & Hill House Comics for the ARC! The book is already out now, though, so you can go get it!

Carmen Maria Machado knows how to tell a twisting, terrifying tale. DC Comics' The Low, Low Woods packs a serious punch with the macabre mystery that unwinds through a series of six issues bound into one book.

If you are a fan of body horror, cryptids, and weird science, and LGBT+ representation then this is a graphic novel you’ll want to pick up. The Low, Low Woods is the second release in DC’s horror imprint Hill House Comics. 

When your memories are stolen, what would you give to remember? Follow El and Vee as they search for answers to the questions everyone else forgot. Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, is plagued by a mysterious illness that eats away at the memories of those affected by it. El and Octavia are two best friends who find themselves the newest victims of this disease after waking up in a movie theater with no memory of the past few hours. As El and Vee dive deeper into the mystery behind their lost memories, they realize the stories of their town hold more dark truth than they could've imagined. It's up to El and Vee to keep their town from falling apart...to keep the world safe from Shudder-to-Think's monsters.

An added bonus to this story is that, while there is a timeless element to it, there’s a distinct 1990s-grunge feel that truly appealed to my inner child. Whether it manifests in Machado’s snarky dialogue, the protagonists' nihilistic commentary, or Dani Strips’ unique art style — it’s the perfect atmosphere for this tale. 

With a story set in Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania — that so perfectly evokes images of the subtle paranormal atmosphere of the coal mining towns in the state — it’s no surprise that the author hails from Allenstown, Pennsylvania. Carmen Maria Machado is an award-winning best selling author, whose previous works include In the Dream House and her short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. With The Low, Low Wood, she is brilliant at combining the best aspects of her previous works to create something truly unique. 

Machado's main characters El and Octavio are clever and charming, their deeply-bonded friendship feels real, and their lives exist beyond the short glimpse we're given. You feel the story that comes before and after The Low, Low Woods. Despite reading this as a singular graphic novel, I appreciated how bookended each story is with the next — the story flows from one issue into the next. There are winding mysteries, unexpected turns, and a few serious WTF moments.

Your Money Geek thanks DC Comics & NetGallery for providing us with a free copy for review.

Thank you Net Galley and DC comics for giving me a ARC copy to review. I enjoyed this comic a lot I would definitely read them again. I also loved the graphics and characters.

Warning for sexual assault, rape, and abuse.

Carmen Maria Machado has a really strong voice for creating setting and character. El and Vee both felt like fully realized characters and I liked seeing the devoted childhood friends trope with two textually queer women. They were definitely one of the highlights of The Low, Low Woods. One of my favorite parts was the town of Shudder-to-Think itself, which is introduced as a malevolent small town in central Pennsylvania. As the story unfolds, it reveals itself to be burning from the mines up, devouring in a host of different ways everyone who stays there. Rather than an actor, Shudder-to-Think is a reflection of the harm and violence inflicted by people, namely the violence men inflict on women and to a lesser extent, the violence the rich inflict on the working class in the name of capitalism. The magic of the town offers possibilities for violence, but also for love, connection, and regaining agency. I enjoyed the dual perspective on that, namely seeing El and Vee's unexplainable physical connection, but I wanted to see more along that vein.

I was really impressed by the body horror and fucked with the central conceit of women becoming monsters because monstrous things happened to them. There was a real sense of visceral, externalized trauma, and tying in with Chopin's The Awakening, the comic felt like a deliberate attempt to subvert the monstrous and mad woman trope. "No one likes a mad woman, you made her like that," you know?

Final thoughts: The art fits really well with the feel of the comic and is well-suited to horror. I felt there were more dropped threads and abrupt introductions than there should have been for a six-issue limited run, but I also feel it fits the graphic novel format better than it did serialization. Overall, a strong narrative on regaining agency and a cool rumination on place.

Recently, DC Comics released a line of horror comics called Hill House Comics. In this line, horror writer Joe Hill selects stories written by well-known horror authors for the comic medium. None of these stories have everything to do with the DC universe, but they’re supposed to show a wide array of talent in our spookiest genre.

For my first foray in this line, I chose to read an ARC of The Low, Low Woods. Why? Because Carmen Maria Machado wrote it. After the sumptuous feasts that were Her Body and Other Parties and In The Dream House, I’ve decided Machado has to be an author to pursue. Her luscious prose and amazing ideas give me the greatest pleasure to read. If anybody is going to sell me on Hill House Comics, it’s her.

Thankfully, she did.

The Low, Low Woods is a comic full of my absolute favorite things: sapphic protagonists (one of whom is Latine like me), a small town with terrible secrets, a witch, monsters, mystery, and a good, thoughtful look into our society.

Our protagonists are great. El and Vee are written very realistically. They feel like two distinct people that I would meet out there in the world, and several of their musings as things get worse in Shudder-to-Think seemed like ramblings I or any of my teenage friends would have. The two are so compelling that I wouldn’t even mind a continuing series with these two.

Fortunately, Machado also happens to give us a tight, well-rounded story that concludes perfectly for our heroes. The mysteries of the town, its monsters, and its disease compelled me to keep reading. I just could not put this book down until I figured out what was going to happen.

The art for this comic, done by the illustrator Dani, fits the story, setting, and themes perfectly. These are some of the most beautiful illustrations I’ve seen in horror comics. They’re all moody and Gothic. The monster designs themselves, especially that of a deer-woman hybrid that keeps showing up, are great to look at. I wish I could get an animated horror feature with this color palette and these designs.

But, if there is a thing that would turn readers away, it’s that the story deals with pretty heavy themes. Misogyny and rape culture are handled head-on. Thankfully, Machado does this in a tasteful and thoughtful way. The focus remains on the survivors of these violent acts and never on the action or the perpetrators. This is definitely an example of how to tackle a sensitive subject in horror well, and I applaud Machado for taking the time to make sure this story doesn’t impact possible survivors in her audience.

All in all, if you’re looking for a graphic novel to enjoy this Halloween, I highly recommend you pick this one up. You’re going to be thinking about Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania for a long, long while after you put this baby down.

After waking up at an empty movie theater, best friends El and Vee realize they're missing some memories. This is a somewhat common experience in Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, a mining town with a variety of strange occurrences, dangerous creatures, and hellish fires barely underfoot. But as they dig into the source of their missing memories, El and Vee learn of a much deeper, darker danger to the women in their town.

STUNNING. The art work, the writing, the storytelling, all of it truly blew me away. I'm a big fan of Carmen Maria Machado, and seeing her words so hauntingly illustrated was a remarkable experience. I didn't know what I was getting myself into with this book, and it got really heavy really fast toward the end. But wow! What an incredibly creative and powerful piece of art.