Member Reviews
Beth Wills, a private investigator, goes to Silk Hills, a small Appalachian town that's seen better days since the mines were abandoned, to find a missing boy. Of course, she didn't expect all the Stranger Things type stuff that was going down there!
The art was really good and I really enjoyed it but it is more fitted perhaps for other GN since it did not give horror vibes.
Part of the story leans more toward classical horror - a small isolated town (the titular Silk Hills) with a lot of secrets, is everybody who they say they are, who can you trust, etc. Throw in a dash of cosmic horror, some monsters and gore, and here you are.
There are many characters that are introduced and the tory was a bit all over the place. With so many characters it was also hard to truly care for them.
How scary can moths be? Very, apparently. Beth Willis goes to Silk Hills at the request of a business owner whose son Abel has gone missing. She has a gift of finding people that don't want to be found. Beth warns Mr. Partridge that her line of work involves uncovering skeletons, so she'd prefer any upfront warnings about the town. He tells her the town has a sketchy history, as well as unsavory people, but that's all he can say. Someone may have taken Abel to get revenge on him. Mr. Partridge, however, insists that Abel is innocent of his father's wrongdoings.
Some of the townsfolk are indeed sleazy, but others like the motel owner Celia are generous with their time, wine and weed. The deeper Beth investigates, the more she finds that the town's Mothman tourism may be the key to this mystery. Celia is willing to help, but those that help Beth find Abel may find themselves disappearing. And what is with this hostile deer that has a human head buried in its neck?
While the art isn't my cup of tea, this story is enthralling. Beth is a sympathetic character, haunted by her past army life, and her current present to seek answers. And we get some gorgeous scenes with colorful moths in strange places.
Uma graphic novel incrível que se assemelha a Arquivo -X , bem como ao universo Lynchniano co todas suas especulações sobre o que é ou não real. Ilustrações que são belas e assustadoras, ao mesmo tempo, e que elevam o clímax da narrativa quando nos deparamos com os limites do que é real e do que é manipulado.
I found this graphic novel interesting and had a great twist. The art work of the illustrations was bold and beautiful in scary way. I would put a warning on it for visual violence and sex scenes so those of us that work in a school now what to is in it as it is more adult than YA. The only problem was at the beginning I found the text to be blurry and this took away some of my enjoyment of reading this book.
Silk Hills by Ryan Ferrier and Brian Level is a mysterious graphic novel set in Appalachia with definite X-Files vibes. I liked the folk horror aspects of the piece, how bizarre the story became, and the tangible atmosphere the authors created. While I did enjoy most parts of this graphic novel, there were times that I felt really lost in the narrative. It's definitely a book that requires the reader to fill in some of the blanks or even reread.
I really loved the illustrations by Kate Sherron which made the read worth it to me.
Thank you to Netgalley and Oni Press for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.
Silk Hills was visually incredible and bizarre in the best ways. I feel like the story wasn't quite there but I'd be interested in seeing what these folks do next. Heck, I'd love to see this world and characters explored more!
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc copy.
I give it 3 stars, but I would still sincerely recommend it. If you're intrigued by the cover, you will enjoy it.
The art is very stylized, which I found helped enhance the mood of the story. The specific imagery and art during the supernatural moments are fantastic. I could look at some of the pages for a while.
You get a good sense of identity from the two main characters. They both feel distinct with their own personal quirks. My one problem would be that the facial and body design for the many male random locals and police officers were all drawn fairly similarly and all sorta blended together.
The story itself is interesting, but I felt it needed more time to develop properly. I can easily see this as an 8 episode HBO or Netflix show.
My other issue was the constant blending of drug-induced hallucinations and reality. Especially since the hallucinations were very symbolic and often resulted in the the status quo changing significantly, only for the story to jump backwards. It also blended regular human violence, cult violence and supernatural violence in a way that felt way too messy, especially given all the hallucinations which made for a jarring read. The story felt a bit unmoored, with too many dangling plot threads to cover in only two issues.
Ultimately, the scope of the story was too big and gruesome to be contained within a small community - after the many, many deaths or disapperances, the news of the supernatural couldn't be stopped from spreading.
This one didn’t make a lot of sense. It’s about a private eye looking for someone in a small town. They quickly start seeing strange things doing with moths and deer that turn into people. Things degenerate from there. I don’t care for stories that don’t have answers.
Silk Hills is an interesting and gruesome little story complete with body horror, buggy horror, and the horror of a bad trip. It has some interesting ideas and promising characters, but I feel like it falls short of its potential and never fully explains what's going on. The art is highly stylised and looks pretty cool but it can also be visually hard to tell what's going on at times. I did enjoy it for the most part, and it made for a solid spooky season read, but I feel like it didn't live up to its potential. Anyone interested in horror comics should still give it a go.
Silk Hills, set in the small Appalachian town of the same name, is a haunting and beautifully illustrated graphic novel. Beth Wills arrives after being contacted to search for a lost person, but things feel...off. She finds more than she expects, including the obsession with Mothman, the local drug trade, incredibly creepy deer, and psychoactive moth dust. I highly recommend this!
Coming soon to No Flying No Tights. www.noflyingnotights.com. The book is a deep dive into Appalachia folklore that also blends hallucinatory imagery, PTSD, and cosmic level weirdness. For fans of the Mothman and horror noir.
Silk Hills follows an army veteran turned private detective who searches for the mayor's missing son in a small town with some very dark secrets. As much as she is trying to run away from her once-happy life that no longer fits her, she's running toward something she might want to run from even harder.
Let's talk about what was really good. The coloring in the art in this book is absolutely gorgeous, and the explosion of gorgeous white moths near the end was stunning, but some of the drawings of the people were a little off. I didn't necessarily dislike the art style, there were just a couple places where the way someone's body was shaped was a bit off-putting or distracting, kind of stick-figurey in contrast to the rest of the gorgeous illustrations. I did like that the artist made the effort to show natural belly rolls when women bend over, and didn't try to make breasts look all perfect and perky.
The story, however, was very disjointed. It jumped around and made very little sense. It would have the characters have these big "revelations" without actually ever having explained anything, so it was very confusing and I kept flipping back like maybe I had missed something. Not to mention the toxic lesbian setup of a woman who a) knows many of the secrets of the town and keeps them from the main character and also b) drugs the main character without her consent. The story just felt very rushed, and didn't take the time to lead you where it was going. I was excited for a Mothman story, and I really think this could have been a lot better, if it had just been paced a little better and fleshed out a little more (oh wow, didn't realize I was going to be making a pun there).
Note: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley. I was not compensated in any other fashion for the review and the opinions reflected below are entirely my own. Special thanks to the publisher and author for providing the copy.
I chose this book because of this description- "This atmospheric and stylish mystery set in the Appalachian region is perfect for fans of Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Sons of the Devil', which seemed right up my alley. However, the story took much much too long to wrap up, the art was substandard and I just didn't really care about the surreal moth-man storyline.
An overall decent graphic novel. Loved the mystery/horror elements. However, this book felt disorganized. The story was all over the place. If this book is revised it can be great.
If you want to be confused and scared this book is for you. The plot is incredibly fast paced. It was very creepy and full of horror. A short and quick read. There were lots of things going on.
Silk Hills by Ryan Ferrier is an acid trip of a story. At times I found it a bit hard to follow what happened from panel to panel.... but overall this was a solid Appalachian horror story.
Silk Hills is a horror comic of a town called Silk Hills where two warring families erupt into chaos. In a town with two main family groups, one family takes over the town with its greed and forces the other family to live in the old mining tunnels where they begin to worship a sinister god.
This comic was so gory and psychedelic. Reading it feels like you’re on drugs. The story is moreish making it difficult to put down. The art is so well done and I loved the colour scheme. This also had a F/F relationship and an M/M relationship and the main character is a black lesbian.
I really enjoyed reading this! Although I got it as an ARC from Oni Press, I will also be purchasing my own copy, this is definitely one that I’ll be re-reading multiple times!!
TWs/CWs - War (past, brief mentions); US Army (referred to); Bugs (mentioned; on page); Homophobia (referred to); Drug use (past, referred to; on page - weed); Alcohol consumption (on page); Cussing; Sexual Harassment; Animal death; Gore; Blood; Hallucinations; Corpse; Murder; Violence; Gun violence; Fire/Fire Injury; PTSD Flashbacks; Sex scene (off page); Nudity; Car crash (on page)
Unfortunately I couldn't really get into this one. Interesting premise but it fell a bit short for me.
This was such an interesting graphic novel. Was any of it real? Was is all the drugs? Who knows! I really enjoyed this and now I want to check out more of the author's work. The artwork was fantastic too. I really liked how everything was so trippy. I felt like that was conveyed very well. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's a fan of horror or mysteries.
Silk Hills by Ryan Ferrier was confusing and slow. The artwork was average at best and the story unfortunately was not interesting enough to make up for the art. Did not care for it much as at all.