This was not good. I am sorry, it does not sit well with me. Jokes are tasteless and the stories are a mess.

Moon Lake is definitely what the cover and description promises. A horror comic with an interesting story and artwork to match.

Seriously? This was bad. Real bad. I gave two of the seven stories four stars but only because they were so much better than the others which mostly rated one star. The first one, Camp Sasquatch was so bad I almost quit then. I would give zero stars to the interlude story that introduces each upcoming comic. So dumb it was painful

So I was very curious by this GN since I noticed that Dan Fogler was behind it, but this just didn't work for me.

The illustrations are good, as well as the coloring, but the text bubbles are just horrible. Everything is tiny and with a bad formatting that makes it painful to read so it doesn't work for this ebook. Maybe the physical edition is better, but the ebook version is almost impossible to read IMHO.

"DNF"

I tried to like this, I really did, but this Graphic Novel just isn't for me.

I feel there's likely to be an audience for this, someone who has a familiarity with the era of comic books that this is clearly a nod to might enjoy it, but without that familiarity or fondness for this style of GN it falls entirely flat.

The stories feel trashy, and while that is not necessarily a bad thing (it is intentional at least!) it is jarring. I like a gritty GN but not a mindless one.

Sadly a DNF for me.

Moon Lake Vol. 1 is an anthology horror comic curated by Dan Floger

This is an anthology of stories happening at Moon Lake, site of a lunar meteor crash ages ago, and since then a location prone to paranormal events.

The editor described this as Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Acid. Each story is indeed introduced by a plump dude but, I don’t think that show and acid is enough to describe the stories included here. You would have to add the most outrageous events of Elm St and Friday the 13th movies on top of the acid, and even then...

There is great line up of creatives in this book, and it’s amusing to see the first story being a period piece drawn in their era styles. Stories vary in humor, horror, gore, and even settings, as one happens on the moon itself. All of them are equally interesting and respecting the atmosphere of this anthology.

It might not be for everyone as it’s sometimes very outrageous, but, it might also be a riot to some. For me, it was mindless fun. You’ll be the judges.

Thanks to Heavy Metal, Diamond Books, and Netgalley for the ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.

OPINION: Whoa—I don’t know who this comic’s intended audience is, but it’s not me. I couldn’t bring myself to reading more than a few pages and skipping ahead through the other stories. An odd collection of lame jokes, sex, and gore—all without much substance. The stories were forgettable and the artwork was mostly amateur and juvenile. The cover illustration is the best part of the book. If this is the quality and type of content I’m to expect from Diamond, then I won’t be reading much (if any) from their catalogue.

As a side note, I don’t like pointing out negative aspects of books I read, unless I feel it’s necessary or that I have nothing else to say about the comic. In this case, both of my reasons apply.

Unfunny trash – that does at least set out to be trash, if not the unfunny part. Annoying TF link pages split up a selection of highly disposable parodies of sci-fi, horror and other genre films and magazines. I did like the Timothy Treadwell/Grizzly Man skit, but even that, at six pages, is about four pages too long, and generally nothing elsewhere had much appeal at all. Even the Red Sonja-meets-Jean M Auel-meets-Cthulhu chapter fails, principally from being so boring, even if some of the artwork is (comparatively) wonderful. A big fail.

Really bad anthology of cliched horror stories strung together throughout by cringey humour (fart jokes - SO MANY fart jokes!) and gratuitous bloodshed. It's like this is the work of kids trying to be edgy. I wanted to see what Heavy Metal magazine was like but if this is what it has to offer then it's not a publication for me. I don't know who, besides that magazine's established readership, this rubbish will appeal to but I'm not one of them! Boring, stupid comics.

They say never to judge a book by its cover, and in the case of MOON LAKE, I'd strongly agree. Twenty pages into this anthology comic and it was painfully clear the content couldn't possibly hold a candle to the cover art, which is plainly the best thing about this stupidly juvenile romp. MOON LAKE is filled with too much goofy idiocy for me, with its over the top scripting that features little in the way of horror. Instead of trying to generate pulpy scares, the writers here are more interested in crafting stupid fart jokes, jokes about the untrimmed bushes of women in the 1970s, and super-lame sex jokes (a camp counselor, named Tucker, declares this week before the kids arrive to be Fuck Week, complete with a musical number about how it's their week to fuck, and propositions one of the nubile counselors by asking if she's ready to get Tucked... get it? Eh? Eh? His name his Tucker and his pick up line revolves around tucking instead of fucking? Do you get it? Isn't that clever?!). The tastelessness doesn't stop there, though, as the book features some fakes movie posters for imaginary flicks like Vampire Space Sluts from Dimension XXX and The Creature from the African American Lagoon, whose tagline is "fear the fro," incase you need some bonus racism to go with your shitty, dated humor. I'm only slightly masochistic, so after killing off too many brain cells through the first twenty pages of garbage, I skimmed a bit more before tossing this in the DNF pile.