4.5 rounded up! This is what i thought of each story..warning mild spoilers!

Me and Evangeline: not scary, predictable but still kept me wanting to read. 3.5 stars

Milk Door: creepy af, this story is what had me bingeing! And the illustrations omg.4 stars

Butter Corn Ramen: body horror, and horror horror. This had me cringing and so grossed out. The corn pimples..iykyk 5 stars

Green Ribbon: a new twist on a classic kids horror story. 5 stars and i hated the male MC

Forest Fruit: predictable and short but still creepy. Loved the cliffhanger. 4 stars

Bus Stop: this was probably my top story! This was not at all scary maybe slightly creepy in the beginning but it ended up having a miraculous testimonial type of ending. This story really stuck with me. 5 stars

Hangnail: once again body horror that made me cringe. Not at all predictable and short. 4 stars

Better Kate than never: this could easily be a movie or an episode on a creepy show like criminal minds. The message really stuck with me. I kinda wish the ending was more ominous or not happy but still good. 4.5 stars

Little house on the sea: i originally didn’t see the horror in this until reading the authors message at the end but i totally understand. I still remember details of this one. 4.5 stars

Murder Party: the MC was so dumb but i loved the ending and in this world we live in with murderous podcast it’s becoming pop culture. I can def see someone doing this. 5 stars

Viola Bloom: this by far was the scariest and creepiest. I literally jumped back during a certain illustration and screamed lol. We all know which one! I guessed the ending but it still freaked me out. To the author: wtf lol

Overall i loved this, like Truly. And the authors note at the end of each short story was *chefs kiss.

This book was great! It is a graphic novel anthology of 11 bite size horror tales. I feel that it was the perfect amount of horror, not too much or too little.

I liked the variety of stories, there was body horror, jump scares, alien, classics, etc.

If you loved are you afraid of the dark or scary stories to tell in the dark you’ll really enjoy this read.

Bad dreams in the night
by Adam Ellis


The art style is gorgeous (love the eyebrows) and the choice to use blacks and whites (butter corn ramen & hangnail) or blue monochrome (little house in the sea) seperate those stories from the rest and give the reader a much needed reprieve.
My favourite stories were: Green Ribbon, Better Kate than Never & Viola Bloom
Each are very different in their own right and seek to make the reader unnerved by using human traits to show our gruesome tendencies.


THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT (TW: NSFW)


Me and Evangeline at the Farm:

Relatable. Everyone has that one old story we’ve watch / read and could never find again. Overall I didn’t find it scary, more sad.

Milk Door:

It’s giving Coraline. It’s giving ‘get me the fuck out of here’. Delulu is not the solulu, GIRL CALL THE POLICEEEEEE

Butter Corn Ramen:

We’ve all had that food we miraculously found one day and binged until we felt sick; this story perfectly encapsulates that. We truely are what we eat

Ps. I also like that this was left black & white, it makes it creepier

The Green Ribbon:

A good story is something you enjoy, a great story makes you feel emotions. I felt anger at the main character’s narcissism and apathy, I pity Jane’s situation but wonder if she knew that she was the other woman and I felt sorrow for Charlotte, she deserved better.

Forest Fruit:

Ugh. When I saw the title page I knew I’d love this story. I like the characterisation of the boy and how he never looks the coast guard nor the camera in the eye. I love and hate the open ending, I want more but I also adore the mystery of this cliffhanger!

Bus stop:

I find this story the most whimsical turn of the other stories. A magic shop that provides me what I need when I need it? Sign me up, I need a million dollars.

Hangnail:

Hangnail made me the most uncomfortable. Body horror always gets me freaked out, good job. Also hangnails SUCK

Better Kate than Never:

Reality TV these days could easily turn into horror if they just threw in chainsaws and fake blood. This story reminds me of all those shows that replace a character’s actor with another. I like how the audience is always a background & never focused on. I love Taffy, she reminds me of those family blog kids who deal with the privacy invasion, give advice to their younger (or in this case, less experienced siblings) then escapes when they’re 18. I think this one is my favourite, it makes me question so many things. What happened to the first Kate? How did this Kate appear? Has Taffy gone through this too? Are the parents in control of the show or are they puppets to the producers?

Ps. I’m glad Kate escaped but why didn’t she take my girl Taffy with her 😭

Little House in the Sea:

It depicts the isolation that single motherhood brings, I personally believe that it also delves into enmeshment / co-dependent relationships. I love the artist use of a monochromatic colour scheme as it shows the character’s perspective of her world (only seeing one way of doing things, not questioning or changing it)

Murder Party:

I agree with the author, true crime has rotted a good majority of brains (although I am being a hypocrite as I have listened to them too). It reminds me of those murder cases and the criminals get love letters, it’s just gross. I love the open ending of the podcaster, you didn’t need to show her death to create impact from it

Viola Bloom:

This was the perfect finale. This one definitely creeped me out the most, something about her unnatural body posture and Viola’s curse poem just made bile settle in my throat. And the calling card stuck to the last page? Omg brilliant, chef kiss to the author

I've been following Adam Ellis on various social media platforms for years, and was beyond excited when he announced this book. If you've also followed Ellis, then you've probably read most of these comics before. It's a nice little collection of creepy tales, and I enjoyed the author's notes at the end of each one explaining where the inspiration came from. If you're wanting something truly horrifying, this isn't it. But for a beautifully drawn collection of scary stories with a tinge of humor, I don't think you could do much better than Bad Dreams in the Night.

Loved every second of this graphic novel. It touched on every single one of my favorite childhood memories of reading scary stories from the library and made me feel like I was nine years old again. Highly recommend for fans of short nostalgic horror stories.

These were short little stories but still had nightmarish horror elements. Throughout the comic there are multiple different art styles which was interesting as well as modern takes on old tales and brand new horror stories.

I’ve followed Adam Ellis for a while and I do enjoy his comic style. I saw this while browsing through NetGalley and was excited to check it out!

Bad Dreams In The Night is a collection of horror stories, some familiar and some original. I really do like Adam’s art style and his comics really bring that to life. The stories are okay, some are definitely stronger than others. “The Green Ribbon” is not a new story, and while I was fine with his take on it, I would’ve preferred something original. “Butter Corn Ramen” makes my skin itchy just thinking about it (tw: trypophobia) and “Viola Bloom” was spooky. I wish each story was a little longer, I felt I barely had time to register what was unfolding before it was over. I enjoyed the peek behind the curtain after every comic, telling how the story came to be.

It’s a nice, quick read.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

What better way to kick off my 2024 reading year than with a five star read? There’s something so nostalgic about this collection of stories. I would not call myself a horror girl (I couldn’t even handle Are You Afraid of the Dark. Iykyk) but this book hooked me from the beginning. The pining for the simplicity but naivety of childhood in the 90s, pre-internet, pre-24-hr programming. All of it just worked so well for me.

Stories ranged from Scary Stories-vibes to Black Mirror-esque, from unnerving to terrifying. I didn’t think I’d devour this like I did- I binged it in one night.

The pacing of these stories was excellent, something that seems hard to do with a graphic novel. Kudos to Ellis for being able to make me jump while reading a story. The last story effed me up and there’s no doubt in my mind I will have nightmares. The perfect ending.

Thank you to Adam Ellis, NetGalley, and Andrew McMeel Publishing for the ARC of this book (out April 16, 2024!) in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

So I've read Adam Ellis's comics over many years because his work has been passed around on every social media site I've ever been on. I also remember his short comedy comics when he was part of BuzzFeed, and I will admit, I mostly know him from his comedic work, not horror. However, I had seen parts of some of the stories that are in this book on social media already. Several of the stories were great, perfect little bite-sized pieces of horror. A few of the stories weren't really scary, they were just weird or gross. (I still don't know how he managed to make the Hangnail comic even worse.) A few of the stories feel like they were cut too short. They had a fantastic idea for a mind-bending horror story, that really could have been fleshed out into an entire graphic novel. But it appears like the author was unsure of how to do that, so he just wrote what he had, and ended it. His rendition of The Green Ribbon was honestly fantastic. Short and to the point, but managed to make it even scarier the the original tale that we all grew up with. The art style is pretty good, and if you remember how his art was in the 2010s, you can tell just how far he's come as an artist and how he has perfected his art style. He has always been a good artist, but now it's great. The end of each short has a short blurb explaining the inspiration behind the comic you have just read. I'm mixed on these being in the book. On the one hand, I like it, because I always like reading what an artist's inspiration was. On the other hand, it breaks up the flow between each chapter and gives it a weird feeling by having to pause and read a big paragraph at the end of every chapter. I honestly would love to see a full-length horror comic created by Adam Ellis, he clearly has great ideas for horror stories! But please, no more stories with a huge trypophobia trigger in them. It was almost worse than the Hangnail one.

This graphic novel contains 11 horror stories. Although horror is not my favourite genre, I did enjoy this book. Out of the 11 some were disappointing but some were really good. My favourite one was about that only house in the sea and the green ribbon. The drawings were amazing and the vibes were creepy. I'd recommend.

This is so good! I had a fantastic time reading it. I wasn't expecting to love this book as much as I ended up loving!

This book contains 11 horror short stories and I felt lukewarm about maybe 1 or 2, but the majority were amazing! The plot of the stories were engaging and the illustrations were so good. Each and every story gripped me. And of course, all of them were creepy. My favorite was "Butter Corn Ramen". I was absolutely disgusted by it, I loved it!!

Overall, this is an amazing horror graphic novel. Cannot recommend it enough! It is so so good. I am now a fan of Adam Ellis. Looking forward to reading more of such book by him.

Thank you NetGalley for an early galley!

This was SO fun!! I love graphic novels but had such a hard time figuring out which one would be next. Luckily, I saw Adam Ellis’s name and took a shot. Really really quick and enjoyable read. Usually I stay away from horror stories, but the nice graphics made it so easy to read :) I’m hoping there’s a second part to this… a series would be so cool!

Ive followed Adam Ellis on social media for years now and have watched his art style, artistic voice and themes of comics grow and change over the years. I always enjoy his short horrors and find them to be unique and eerie. They arent always your typical scary but can range from unsettling to skin crawling which makes them much more interesting in my opinion. I think this is a great little collection of tales and would love another!

This graphic short story collection brings the creepy, disturbing ick to common daytime things like hangnails, a great bowl of ramen, and antiquated features of our homes just like a good bad dream. If you grew up reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark or Goosebumps, try this graphic novel for grownups.

Each short story is followed by an author’s note discussing inspiration for story concepts. This would be a great fit in teen and adult graphic novel sections.

I’d like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I will admit to not really knowing who Adam Ellis is but the cover immediately drew me in and the stories sounded fun. I finished this in one setting, I really liked the art and I will say of all the stories, the first and last were my favourites.

Bad Dreams in the Night is a horror graphic novel that has a few short stories that are illustrated. I really enjoyed this! The scary stories were all fun to read and I loved the illustrations. They were all very quick reads and I enjoyed them! I liked the little explanation at the end of each story as well. It showed the background for each story and added a bit of humor. I read this on my kindle and I am excited to see the actual printed version of this when it comes out because I bet the illustrations will look great.

I don't read a lot of graphic novels but I liked this one because the stories were fun!

Thanks so much to netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the arc of this in exchange for an honest review!

Well, I'm actually surprised and disappointed to be giving less than stellar feedback. I'm familiar with Adam Ellis's comics from Reddit and have always adored them. I had a whole plan in my head to make a post on Reddit and talk about how he has a new book coming out since he's an /r/comics darling, but I don't think I should at this point. Unfortunately, I have a few problems with this set of comics, some are easily fixable, so I'd encourage the publisher and author to possibly consider them.

First, the explanation after each story is unnecessary and diminishes the experience. If you have to explain the point, why bother with the comic in the first place. Also, while the artist of course has inspiration and intent behind their piece, the greatest part of art is the interpretation on the part of the consumer. Otherwise, your reader doesn't connect with it as organically and naturally as they might. They don't take away their own personal meaning, just the author's.

Secondly, a few of these stories were really unoriginal. The Green Ribbon is just the Green Ribbon combined with Bluebeard's Wife. Hangnail (if the initial story really was created by Adam Ellis) was way to prevalent to be interesting this time around. Viola Bloom is just a story about chain mail and has been done so, so many times.

Evangeline, Butter Corn Ramen, Forest Fruit and Little House in the Sea were more original but predictable and kind of boring. Murder Party was preachy. True Crime and Horror fans are definitely going to overlap, and I think it will turn those readers off, but hey, if that's the point, that's the point.

Milk Door, Bus Stop, Better Kate than Never were great, but I thought Milk Door especially was ruined by the explanation at the end.

All in all, I think I've realized that while I like Adam Ellis's art, I don't really like his writing. I'm most familiar with his comics that portray 2-sentence horror stories and those are written by other users on reddit. I think my suggestion would be asking/paying those users for their concept and creating a book of those. The lack of originality was just... saddening.

I am not really a horror girlie - I dabble a little. I did not expect this book to be terrifying (It's a graphic novel!) but it was so scary I had to stop reading it last night and finish it this morning AND I STILL HAD BAD DREAMS. One of the stories I've heard before and one of the comics I'd seen on his Insta... and yet here we are.

Bravo, Adam. This is a truly scary horror graphic novel.

Thank you Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing me with an ARC.

This is a good collection of short light horror stories.
The stories are interesting, the art is very clean and cute and the rhythm is just right.

Unfortunately, it didn't really click with le, but it's still a very nice read.

Once again an author proves that a graphic novel can be scary. These are all short little nightmares that are scary! I don’t think I’ll forget this anytime soon. I wish I could read it again for the first time and I’m jealous of those that can!

Thank you NetGalley, Andrews McMeel Publishing and Adam Ellis for letting me read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.