Ugh, the way I screamed when I saw this!!! Our favorite Ghoulfriends are back in action in this new graphic novel. It collects issues 1-4 of New Scaremester, and a couple other goodies!
We see the ghouls in the aftermath of multiple fallouts between another, but spooky things are going on around the school. We see Draculaura dealing with massive grief and pressure, Clawdeen and Clawd having familial issues, and Cleo is well, very Cleo!
I love that we see Clawdeen and Toralei, and Valentine and Spelldon as couples because AHHH!
This is the perfect read for any Monster High Fan, new or longtime. It’s got spooky, cute, and the each of the ghouls are more similar to their G1 versions of themselves. (Ghoulia is back to her groans and I’m so here for it)

Where was this comic when I was in middle and high school?! This was such a cute nostalgic read. From the writing to the artwork, it was all fangtastic. My favorite ghoul friends and Monster High characters were perfectly captured. I can't wait to read more of the Monster High comics!

This graphic novel fits the style of the Monster High dolls and shows well. You can tell it was made to fit the brand. I think the overall plot is weak. I wouldn’t purchase this book.

Cute illustrations, good story. Perfect for any young or old monster high lovers. I love the inclusion of most of the well known monster high characters. Thank you Netgalley.

Very nostalgic for me. I loved the portrayal of each of the characters. The story was pretty good and the illustrations for the pages are beautiful.

I loved that each girls have their own color palette explicitly shown on their scenes. The storyline was a bit wonky for me and not that solid to follow. There's also too much text in panels that sometimes overwhelmingly consumes the space.

Thank you NetGalley and IDW Publishing for an early read of the book Monster High: New Scaremester!

You may need prior lore knowledge to appreciate the stories being told about the group of friends. There was mystery and conflict between the girls in this collection. I did not have much of the lore that created the conflict and so it was hard to keep up. But the general story was interesting, and I can see kids really enjoying this graphic novel of some of their favorite characters. Especially the ones that know the ins and outs of the Monster High universe. There were some really cool lessons and concepts explored in the book. We deal with grief, the loss of a parent, boundaries in relationships, parents and family splitting up, and overall growing pains. The illustrations are colorful and well done.

Monster High: New Scaremester follows the main ghouls during a new school year with something evil brewing just beneath the surface. I am going to warn that the plot and relationships don’t line up with the G1 webseries we knew as kids or the current G3 tv show/movies. This is a new spin on the original webseries which has been done before to monster high as we’ve seen this through books like ghoulfriends forever. As someone who enjoyed reading just about any official monster high content I could find as a kid and who grew up into enjoying graphic novels, I found this comic series to be a lot of fun! I can’t wait to find out what happens next!
The art for this series was done by Caroline Shuda and is beautifully made. I really love how she draws all of the characters in her own style while still maintaining the look that they have from the original material. I’m in love with the way she draws Cleo. The writing, which was done by Jacque Aye, was a fun and fast paced read. All of the ghouls managed to keep the qualities that we enjoyed from the original material. The drama, the friendship, the fun. All while developing other characters such as their parents and more minor character. I loved the representation that they were able to put in there as it really feels like a monster high series where you are accepted for who you are. The only thing I found annoying was the use of puns. A lot of them were clever and fun, but sometimes I felt like there were just too many per page and it almost distracted from what I was reading.

This was definitely a fun read for someone who really enjoys Monster High; however, it did feel like it started out of nowhere and ended a tad abruptly. Overall, I enjoyed the story and found the art delightful.Thank you, NetGalley and publishers, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. As always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.

New Scaremester!!! *screams* If there is one thing you need to know about me is that I love Monster High. It was my absolutely favourite thing growing up and I was endlessly jealous of my friend who had basically all the dolls while I had none because my parents said they were too expensive.... I wish they knew the resale value of those dolls today.... Anyways! At least I got ARC of the comics which my friend did not get! (okay yeah, she didn't even request one)

I do have to admit though that I have not kept up with the lore in recent years and so much has happened since then! So, points for the book for making sense despite that. Huge fan when you can still get into things even if the franchise has been around for a long time without having to go through everything! Though if there is someone out there getting into Monster High... may I tempt you to go through everything? That's what I am currently doing with everything I have missed.

Okay, yes back to the book! I love the art, it's both incredibly cute and creepy at the same time and how can you not love something cute and creepy? It's also super fun and relatable storywise. Personally, I feel like they could calm down a bit with the wordplays as they made it a bit difficult to read but I think it could be me thing; a) I have dyslexia b) English is not my first language c) all other Monster High content previously has been consumed in my first language, so I wasn't familiar with the terms.

I do think that the stories did fall a bit flat though and needed a few more pages in them. Regardless, I had so much fun reading this and getting back into the Monster High universe.

A huge thank you to IDW Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC!

The artwork was wonderful. This was my first experience with Monster High and unfortunately it wasn’t what I was expecting. The writing style was really difficult to read and get through. It was nonstop puns and plays on words. Overall it seemed a lot more juvenile than I was expecting.

Back in middle school, I was a huge fan of the Monster High franchise but this was my first time reading one of its comics and it made me super happy. It has all the things that I loved about the franchise: the cool character and clothing designs, the very relatable hardships faced by the ghouls and the sweet friendships.

While the main story in this first volume is mostly about some strange occurences at the school, there are a couple mini-stories that focus more on the love lives of some of the monsters. I absolutely adored "I Put a Spell on You" and "Summer Fangout", both stories were so adorable and I love to see queer rep in the Monster High universe.

This is a collection that groups a bunch of comics and art pieces from different artists and I loved seeing each of their takes on the characters and their environments, it was so inspiring and fun and it's always super vibrant and original.

Story wise, it was also well written, which is something I really appreciated as someone who wasn't that familiar with the stories anymore, I think it's pretty easy to catch up on, flows really nicely and was also really intriguing. I'll definitely pick up the next volumes. The only thing I really didn't like was the dynamic between Cleo and Deuce.

Overall, an entertaining story and something that brought me a lot of happy nostalgia but also some new Monster High material that I really liked and got me back into that universe!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and IDW Publishing for the e-ARC?

I got this as an Arc.

Very nostalgic but with a very modern twist. Scarily enjoyable!

The ghouls are back after what feels like years, but this time in a more mature way. There is an overarching plot here that slowly is revealing itself in every little episode. It reminds me of the old webisodes we used to get during the golden days of Monster High.

The style of the ghouls is still fabulous as the originals and their relationship has even more depth than before.

So happy they are making a comic of these girls because I missed them a lot.

Thank you NetGalley and IDW Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC!

As a MH fan this was so fun to read. The artwork is so beautiful and well done! I really liked the two monsterpride short stories and the casual queerness of it all. There are some details in the narrative that could have been added so it explained better certain situations (like the issue with Deuce and Clawdeen).

Monster High is so nostalgic for me and I was really excited to read this graphic novel. Unfortunately, it fell short for me. I think the free comic book day issue should have been put at the back of the book because it was confusing to start the book that way instead of the issues from the new scaremester. I don’t follow Monster High anymore and there was not a lot of explanation of the backstory they were referencing with Draculara’s dad and the normies from the prior semester. I didn’t feel like a whole lot really happened in this book either. On the bright side, I enjoyed getting to revisit with these characters and the art was stunning.

What a scarific cliffhanger at the end! I bloody need to to read volume 2.

It’s been a while since I’ve consumed any MH media, but, bull, have I missed the ghouls!

The two monsterpride short stories were absolutely fangtastic! Two ghoul-couples and one boo-couple, creepy cute and scaremazing! 5/5 screams <3
Some uhh-nderful messages as well. For hexample: “Who cares what your relationship is supposed to lurk like? We’re monsters, after all, we already defy expectations.”

Too frad that they weren’t in the main story, but it was still a clawsome read overall.

I especially lava all the scareverse monsters in the background, and Ghoulia’s zombie language which consists of moans and groans. And, of corpse, the bootiful monster puns.

5/5 screams for the art as well.

~

Thanks IDW publishing for a scareview copy. Ghostly cool of you!

-11.03.25

As a Monster High fan of about 15 years now (can you believe this year is their 15th anniversary??), this collection of comic book-style stories felt a lot like catching up with old friends. It does include the first 4 issues of the New Scaremester comic book series, which I read as they were coming out, but it also includes the prelude issue to New Scaremester, which provided some much-needed additional context, as well as two stand-alone stories that I enjoyed reading.

Something that's really struck me while engaging with this new wave of generation 1 Monster High media in this print format is how these authors and illustrators have managed to both capture the heart and spirit of the 2010s Monster High series while also incorporating darker, more mature plots and more nuanced depictions of the characters. I always knew that these characters had "freaky flaws", but only recently have I really been forced to think about their positive and negative traits.

A must-read for the now-adults who came of age alongside the students of Monster High.

As someone who loved Monster High when I was younger I loved delving back into that world! I really like the art style and seeing the characters I loved as a kid back in action!

Happy publishing day to this cutie! New semesters are always a bit of a thing, but even more so if you are a group of beasties with a tad too much drama and a bit of mystery going on at school.

Thanks to IDW Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are my own.

I'll say that, as someone who only vaguely saw content when I was younger—but not young enough—that this didn't carry a huge amount of nostalgia for me, nor did I really remember much of the plot. But this was definitely fun!

I adored the casual queerness of it all, while this book definitely also carried the drama and struggles this age category experiences at school. It also addresses preferences, identities, and personality in quite an easy way, which means it does educate while still being fun and easily accessible for the reader.

I didn't rate it higher than 3 stars, though, because the plot only seems to pick up in the future volumes, and this only set the slight mysterious tone. Chapters also didn't feel really connected, and if you're like me and not that connected with the franchise, it might get a bit confusing.

First we had Barbie’s, Lisa Frank, then the Bratz, and now Monster High. My teen self was screaming while reading this adorable graphic novel.

From summary:
Ghouls and boos are heading back to Monster High for a new scaremester!

While they’ll certainly be serving lurks in the hallway and haunting study howl, rumor has it that trouble is brewing. Draculaura, Clawdeen Wolf, Cleo de Nile, and Frankie Stein have never met a bad scare day or monstrous problem they couldn’t fix together… but Drac’s in over her fangs with new responsibilities, Clawdeen and Cleo aren’t speaking, and Frankie’s life may be in danger. The beasties need a fresh start, and what better time than the new scaremester? Surely a reconciliation is lurking just around the dark and foreboding coroner.

My thoughts:
For disclosure, I never finished watching the TV series. But this was utterly adorable and nostalgic. The artwork was breathtakingly beautiful that it reminded me of Lisa Frank. The dialogue and storyline were greatly executed due to each story being tied to one another. However, with this being the first volume, I still felt a disconnection and confusion while reading. For example: what was the catalyst for the ghoul drama as a whole, what happened between Deuce and Clawdeen, and the eerie blackmailing with Frankie’s dad.

I love a good pun, and this was a pun galore. So fun.

I loved the LGBTQ+ representation in this.

Overall, I was captivated enough to where I will be continuing with the collection upon release.

Thank you NetGalley and IDW Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC in return for an honest review.