Such a great murder mystery thriller type. Ed Brubaker is always great at creating crime stories with rich characters.

This was actually pretty good, but I gave it 3 Stars because I felt it was a bit rushed. I would have loved to have more detail as the plot was very interesting. I didn't realize this was a graphic novel but enjoyed it and felt like it was a quick read for me. I would still read a second installment in hopes of more content!

Thank you to NetGalley, Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips & Image Comics for this ARC!

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy for an honest review.

I really enjoyed reading this and will be picking up a copy as soon it releases. 💕
It was well written and I really enjoyed my time reading it.

Rating 4 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This graphic novel wasn’t bad…the ending could have been better. Overall I enjoyed reading it and the artwork and use of colours for different time lines was great.

Dark, gorgeous and heartbreaking. A story like this needs to be told this way. The use of color was brilliant, and I felt jarred back to earth when it was over.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

Thanks to NetGalley and Image Comics for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Brubaker and Phillips have done it again. And by "it," I mean created a masterpiece of a graphic novel. The Dynamic Duo. These two do magic together.

Houses of the Unholy follows Natalie Burns, an adult with a past connection to the Satanic Panic of the 90s, and an FBI Agent as they try to uncover what is killing the rest of the Satanic Six.

Brubaker' gritty storytelling is perfect for dealing with the Satanic Panic and Phillips artwork does a fantastic job of tying it together. The layout of every page was ridiculously cool and hard for me to describe.

5/5 stars

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

Thank you to Image Comics & NetGalley for the e-ARC of Houses of the Unholy!

I had to restart this a couple of times to get into it & that was probably just my brain not braining, but at some point, I was all in. This is very Satanic Panic & has cults which I absolutely love!!There’s also an unexpected twist that made this story even more fun.

Art wise, it wasn’t a style that I’d swoon over, but I absolutely respect the vintage-y vibes it was giving & the color scheme was definitely fitting for the story!

Creepy, twisty yet also a fun read.
The art is dark but gorgeous and suited the culty demonic theme of the story.

A really good comic with very good illustrations! The story was really good and it was thrilling. Very horror esque

This was one of the best comics/graphic novels I have read in a while. I loved the storyline and I literally couldn’t put it down. I read the entire thing in one sitting and stayed up way too late but it was worth it and I would 110% do it again.

I have been a fan of this team for awhile now, so learning that they would be tackling a story regarding the satanic panic with Brubaker’s typical crime flare made me more than a little excited! I was soooo excited to get my hands on an early copy.

I thought this story & artwork were pretty much up to par with what we’ve come to expect from this team, and I loved the topic. I’ve always been fascinated with that particular time period so it was really interesting to read a story focused around the panic & hysteria that overtook our country at that time. I loved the way they danced on the line between reality & panic. For most of the story this would have been a 5 star read but the ending really diminished the story, it felt like it came too abruptly & left me wanting & needing more.

I have a bad habit of rating things according to my feelings about the ending but I am trying not to do so here. The story here is top notch, & while this classic crime noir art style has never been my fav i do think it works well with Brubaker’s content, including this on!! A strong 4 star read!

It takes an effed-up world for the person taking a teenaged girl out the trunk of her car and dragging her into a remote holiday cabin to be the heroine, but that's where we start. It soon goes a long way from there, as we see our lead, Natalie, dragged back into her past. For way back when, she was part of a gang of kids who colluded to pretend they'd been satanically abused by camp guardians, and caused more than one death and more than one lengthy custodial sentence in the people they wrongly accused. Now, someone (or is it something? No – it's someone) is seemingly killing them in turn, and after all these years Natalie is wrenched from anything like normality back into the loopy underground thinking of alleged satanists.

The "Reckless" series wanting to have a lot to say about the time in which it ended up being set, this can feel like a cousin to that – highlighting the way the Internet managed to kill off the idea of all those repressed abuse memories that were the height of fashion once, even as it still has a fascination with the occult underworld. One only has to look at the garbage about Hollywood being full of devil-treating paedos to see this as a historical piece with current relevancy. There's a line here, more or less to remind us that this kind of stuff is always being done, just by those nobody's accusing (and if not them, then by the church).

But for all the interesting spin on devilment, this is flawed by huge coincidences. <spoiler>Natalie and companion conspire to find the very last person they want; said companion is just such a way inclined; the wrong person is always there at the right time.</spoiler> The biggest player in all this here is not Satan, it's the god called Happenstance. Too much just happens to fall in place, and a book that was as inherently enjoyable and readable as this team's routinely are, on reflection feels too flawed. The message is that once you dabble with the devil your fingers are always marked, but boy this is too much of a collusion against our heroine to be anything like the really satisfying narrative it might have been.

Note: I received access to read this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Another Brubaker and Phillips noir that knocks it out of the park. I only wish the ending wasn't so ambiguous. It feels like there is a lot more story left to tell.

I liked this. I found the illustrations to be interesting. And the story to be fast paced and engaging. Overall I would recommend

I always read comics where Ed Brubaker is involved as i generally love them and this one was no exception. The story was really compelling and i found it really gripped me throughout. The art style also helped with that and i found that it helped to sell the narrative being shown by that way. I would like this continue as a series as i found this was such a great read.

This book was okay. I liked the idea of a graphic novel that focused of what happened to some kids during the Satanic panic and that part of the story was actually pretty interesting the start of this was really good but about halfway through things took a weird turn and I really didn't care for it. It felt like a cheap ending.
I also didn't care for the art style. It was just a little to dark and muddy for me. Having bad eyes means this is probably more of a me thing but I do wish illustrators would take that into consideration when they make these.
Anyways over all this was an okay graphic novel. It had some solid bits and it also had some not so great bits. Overall there is definitely an audience for this but the concept has been done before and done better.

Parts of this had real potential to be something wonderfully spooky/horrific, but ultimately it felt like it was overdone and convoluted. I also found the “twist” (which I use loosely) incredibly predictable. That said I enjoy this art style and I would read more from these creators! Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

To me, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips could do no wrong, until I read Houses of the Unholy. As much as I loved the Reckless series and other of their graphic novels, I just didn’t enjoy their new book. Plot wise, it got off to a great start, and then went totally south in the last half. Poor writing in the second half along with a lame ending (if you could call it an ending) marred any enjoyment I might have had in reading the book. The artwork didn’t seem up to par in my opinion.

Overall, far from their best effort.

My thanks to Image Comics and to Netgalley for providing me an ARC of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Image Comics for this title. 3.8 ⭐⭐⭐

📘I'M NEW TO GRAPHIC STORIES
I wasn’t expecting a graphic novel, which I’m sure was included in the description, but it sounded like something that would be an exciting read, and of course, it’s horror, so why not?

📘THE STORY
The children who were a part of the Satanic Six are being killed, and it’s up to one determined member of that group (Natalie) to get to the bottom of the killings before she is next.

📘WHAT BOTHERED ME MOST
I read this on my phone, and I had to do a lot of manipulation just to read the text and side bubbles, which is the advantage (I guess) of a printed copy vs a digital copy of a graphic novel. I didn’t need the images so much, but the back and forth of zooming out and in just to read it was cumbersome.

📘WHAT I ENJOYED
It’s a quick story based on the satanic panic in the 80s and early 90s. This infamous group was called the “Satanic Six,” which refers to six kids claiming that horrific things were done to them.

This story delves into a shared trauma, and while a graphic novel, that doesn't take away its effectiveness in telling this story. It may have some triggers because it shows just how vulnerable and susceptible children are to believe what you tell them and plant a seed that creates a narrative. If you hear something enough times, it becomes valid (in your mind) and your story. Children have some of the most vivid imaginations to create worlds of play or horror stories.

This is a great story, but I would have preferred a different format.