Comic Review: Door to Door, Night by Night Issue #1 from Vault Comics

Door to Door, Night by Night Issue #1

written by Cullen Bunn

Art by Sally Cantirino 

Colors by Dee Cunniffe

letters by AndWorld

November 16, 2022

Genre: humor, thriller, horror

Vault Comics

From all-star creators Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, The Last Book You'll Ever Read) and Sally Cantirino (I Walk With Monsters, Human Remains) comes the story of a motley crew going to battle against supernatural evil throughout the American South.

Perfect for fans of "The Boys," "B.P.R.D." and "Proctor Valley Road."

The Heritage Mills sales team travels from town to town, knocking on doors. They're the best at what they do... which also means they're the worst. They're broken, each and every one of them, haunted by closets so full of skeletons, they're bursting. When they discover a terrible secret behind one fateful door, it opens their eyes to a world full of real monsters hidden in every small town.

12-page preview of issue #1

Alex, Cal, Lacey, Maxine, Will, Fred

I got a chance to review the first THREE issues of Door to Door from Vault Comics. This is definitely on my list of must-reads. This unusual Scooby Gang discovers monsters have invaded small towns across the southern U.S.

I really like the way we get the characters' backstories. Strategically inserted panels give a moment from a character's past. So you get that backstory without interrupting the flow of the story.

I love the dry humor and how, no matter what happens to the group, it all comes back around to knocking on doors and trying to sell those picture coupons.

Issue #1 is a little slow as the story is set up. In the next two issues, things get crazy! Lots of laughs and action. 

Go Door to Door with the Heritage Mills sales team and down the monster-hunting rabbit hole!

4 "Knock, knock" Sheep

SharonS

Comic Reviews: Harrow County issue #18 from Dark Horse Comics

Harrow County Issue #18

Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Carla Speed McNeil
Cover Artist: Tyler Crook
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
November 23, 2016
Dark Horse Comics
Format: FC, 32 pages; Ongoing
Price: $3.99
UPC: 7 61568 26606 1 01811
Emmy has just learned about the mysterious group of powerful beings that call themselves her family. But they’ve been around since before Harrow County ever existed. Through the eyes of a haint, masterfully illustrated by guest artists Carla Speed McNeil and Jenn Manley Lee, this issue explains the Abandoned’s past and reveals his connection with the family, including the enigmatic Amaryllis.
* Featuring special backup stories exclusive to the single issues!
* The second in a two-part story about the Abandoned.
“This is illustrated horror at its best. The world of Harrow County is dark, dense and deserves its status as a modern horror classic.”—Big Comic Page
In this issue, Emmy is told what happened when Malachi made Hester, thinking she would be as close to human and able to lead the family. Except she learns much more about who the beast haunt in the woods is and who she really is.

The Tales of Harrow County is Priscilla. And Priscilla isn’t human, but something much, much creepier, plus, this is obviously a first part of a continuing story for the next issue.

Delightfully eerie as always, Harrow County has never disappointed in being what a good Southern Gothic supernatural dark fantasy should be—nightmares and haints!

5 spooky Southern Gothic sheep.

Pamela Kinney

Comic Review: Harrow County #17 from Dark Horse Comics

HARROW COUNTY #17

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Carla Speed McNeil

Colorist: Jenn Manley Lee

Cover Artist: Tyler Crook

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

October 19, 2016

Dark Horse Comics

Format: FC, 32 pages; Ongoing

Price: $3.99

The Abandoned, that hulking figure with haunting yellow eyes, rarely leaves his ramshackle cabin deep in the woods of Harrow County. But it wasn’t always so. Illustrated by guest artists Carla Speed McNeil and Jenn Manley Lee, this issue is the first of a two-part story that explores the Abandoned’s past and reveals secrets about the very foundations of Harrow County.

* Guest art by Carla Speed McNeil and Jenn Manley Lee!

* Featuring special backup stories exclusive to the single issues!

The haint, Old Buck, tells Emmy a story about Malachi who made the laws for beings such as the others, and Old Buck, to protect them. But Buck has run away to the Outer Banks, living off the wild horses. Malachi appears with Amaryllis, to try and convince Buck to come back with them, where he can keep him safe. But Buck does not. Not long after the others led by Levi kill a human fisherman. Then they head off to town where a festival is going on.

In the “Tales id Harrow County,” a hunter, Zeb shoots a deer dead, but finds a strange creature hovering over the carcass, claiming the woods are his hunting grounds, as well as the deer. It tells Zeb if he pays a tithe, it’ll let Zeb take the deer. Zeb just shoots at the thing and takes the deer home to his family. But in Harrow County, things have a way of getting their due, as Zeb finds out.

Harrow County might be the love child of Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allan Poe, if they had one. Unsettling, dark, and fantastical, with a down home Southern Gothic twist.

5 “Southern Gothic” sheep

Pamela Kinney

Comic Review: HARROW COUNTY #15 from Dark Horse Comics

HARROW COUNTY #15

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Tyler Crook

Cover Artist: Tyler Crook

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

August 10, 2016

Dark Horse Comics

Format: FC, 32 pages; Ongoing

Price: $3.99

UPC: 7 61568 26606 1 01511

Preview

“One of 2015’s best horror comics.”—io9

Emmy has learned that she is not as alone in the world as she thought. Other beings, each possessing dark and terrifying powers, have arrived in Harrow, and they claim to be her true family. They promise to reveal the mysteries of her origin and the truth about the evil witch Hester Beck, but if she accepts their claims, she may condemn everyone she’s ever known.

* Featuring a special backup story exclusive to the single issues by Matt Kindt and Brian Hurtt!

In development for television on SyFy!

Emmy finds out that she has "family" of sorts. Beings with powers, of which, the witch Hester had been one. One of these beings, Odessa, visits her, telling her about the others and what Hester has done. That Hester broke laws, killing her teacher, Amaryllis, and that they banished her, unable themselves to kill her due to the laws that they should not kill one another. Most of all, they plan to teach Emmy about their ways, get her to accept their guidance. It’s what she must do that upsets Emmy.

In “Tales of Harrow County" they talk about how Kammi made many things, some being men. And how without her, these men made plans, to think for themselves. In doing so, there were dire consequences and because of that, those left wanted revenge on the one who began the whole mess.

Harrow County just keeps on getting better and spookier. I am never disappointed with this comic.

I give Harrow County #15 five sheep.

Pamela K. Kinney

Comic Review: Harrow County #10 from Dark Horse Comics

Harrow County #10
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Tyler Crook
Cover Artist: Tyler Crook
Genre: Horror, Fantasy
March 09, 2016
Dark Horse Comics
Format: FC, 32 pages; Ongoing
Price: $3.99
UPC: 7 61568 26606 1 01011
PREVIEW
A malevolent serpent sows madness and malice into the town’s residents, and there’s only one way to stop it. But the shadowy Lovely Belfont’s motivations are far from pure, and an alliance could spell doom for Bernice and the entirety of the town.

* The first issue of a terrifying two-parter!

“Genuinely creepy and engaging, plus delicious art.”—Mark Millar (Huck)

A malevolent serpent sows madness and malice into the town’s residents, and there’s only one way to stop it. But the shadowy Lovely Belfont’s motivations are far from pure, and an alliance could spell doom for Bernice and the entirety of the town.

This first comic issue of a two-parter begins with a man, Early, picking blackberries with his nephew, Clinton. The boy spies a cottonmouth snake hidden in the blackberries bushes and when Uncle Early takes a shovel to kill it before it strikes with a poisonous bite, the snake wraps itself around the shovel and slithers up face to face with Uncle Early. The snake vanishes, but the man hides the fact that he is hurt and bleeding from his ear as he and the boy pack up and leave. 

The story switches to Emmy and Bernice singing and then parting ways as Bernice’s part of Harrow still would not forget Emmy, nor about the witch, not letting Emmy into their area. Bernice finds Early standing still and staring down a path into the woods. She calls out, but Early gives her a strange look, then goes back to staring. She gets home and asks her grandfather about a Lady Lovey who lives at the end of that path, And he tells her a tale about what happened to him as a youth down at the swimming hole, when from a felled tree some moccasins swam past him without attacking and toward a African American woman who picked them up out of the water and whispered something to them. But Bernice knew the truth. That he had never been a boy, but was a full grown man raised from the mud by the witch Hester. So who is Lovey, and is there a connection to the witch?

Once again, we get another tale of Harrow County along with the main story. This one is about the best butcher in Harrow County, Mr. Morrell. No matter where his meat comes from, he always made them the tastiest ever. But one day he closed and people busted down his door to discover the horrible truth. Only in Harrow County…

I cannot wait for part two and see who Lady Lovey is. Sadly, still a month to go.

Harrow County #10 like its predecessors delivers what it promises: a dark, weird, and unsettling Southern Gothic fairytale for modern man.

Reviews: Harrow County #1-9

I give Harrow Country #10 five spooky Southern Gothic sheep. (Counting these sheep won’t lull you to sleep, but bring on nightmares.)

Comic Review: Harrow County #8 from Dark Horse Comics

HARROW COUNTY #8

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Tyler Crook

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

December 9, 2015

Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Format:FC, 32 pages

UPC:7 61568 26606 1 00811

Preview

Kammi has rallied the forsaken haints to her dark cause. Now Emmy may have to make a profound sacrifice if she hopes to protect her kith and kin at the heart of Harrow County.

One cold night, haints come for Emmy. When she asks, then tells them to leave her alone, they don’t. Her twin, Kammi, tells her they will no longer listen to her. That they now listen to Kammi. She offers Emmy a place right by her side to rule, but Emmy tells her no. So Emmy runs for her life, pursued by the ghosts. But as the butler controlled by Kammi is about to kill her, one of the haunts stops him. Emmy runs back home where Kammi costumed as Emmy with magic is about to kill Emmy’s father.

“Tales of Harrow County” in this issue is a flash fiction piece called “Mold.” Where something lives in the mold of a house. It vanishes as a real estate agent shows the house to a couple with a baby and tells them. “A fine place to raise children.” (I really want to know more about that moldy creature.)

A satisfying, chilling end to the evil sister storyline. I cannot wait to see what else Harrow County has in store for Emmy.

I give Harrow County #8 five ‘haunting’ sheep

Pamela K. Kinney

Comic Review: Harrow County #7 from Dark Horse Comics

HARROW COUNTY #7
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Tyler Crook

Cover Artist: Tyler Crook
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Dark Horse Comics

Publication Date: November 11, 2015

Format: FC, 32 pages; Ongoing

Price:$3.99

UPC:7 61568 26606 1 00711

Preview

“One of the best horror comics I’ve ever read. Super creepy!”—Josh Williamson (Birthright)

When your twin is the evil half of a dead witch that can control monsters and the undead, a joyful reunion just isn’t in the cards—which means there’s only one option for Emmy: war!

“Harrow County is a masterful creation that lingers in the small moments of terror in our daily lives.”—Bloody Disgusting

Creepy as always. We now see Emmy’s twin sister from the city, Kammi, with her servant wander through the woods and cemetery, searching for the haints and monsters hidden there. Seducing tem to her side. Meanwhile Emmy feels something in her gut that all is wrong. She does chores as she always has done, even though no one now comes for help, hoping the chores will soothe her. But she cannot ignore something is brewing. Something wrong.

Harrow County #7 uses its artwork and colors to draw the reader into feeling the uneasiness as Kammi stalks the unnatural things. The Southern gothic charm hides the rot and fear beneath. The comic series represents the South in a way those not from the area don’t know—weird and spooky, downright creepy.

reviews of previous issues

5 Sheep

Pamela Kinney

Comic Review: Harrow County #6 from Dark Horse

HARROW COUNTY #6
Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Tyler Crook

Cover Artist: Tyler Crook
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
October 14, 2015

Format:FC, 32 pages

It’s said that everyone has an evil twin—and in Emmy’s case that may be true! But if Kammi is evil, she’s also charming, clever, and sweet, and she could lure Emmy down a dark and dangerous path—one that leads ever closer to fulfilling the legacy of the long-dead witch Hester Beck!“Harrow County is worth checking out if you’re a horror-comic fan!”—Clive Barker

“One of the most haunting comics to come out in a while.”—IGN

Once again I returned to Harrow County is Issue 6. If any comic is perfect for October, month of Halloween, this one is. In this issue, Emmy gets to know her twin sister, Kammi, from the city. Her long-time friend, Bernice is with them, as the two talk about the city and the farm. A storm is crashing all about the farm, appearing to not move. As if listening too. Emmy’s father tells Kammi’s butler to sit, but the man neither does so, nor speak. Creepy. Hours later in the night, Kammi awakes Emmy and she leads her out to the tree where Hester the witch had been killed. Unlike Emmy who doesn’t care to know about Hester or if she is buried there, Kammi wants to know. To me Kammi is not at all like Emmy, and later in the tale, I get the inkling what she is about.

There is another “Tales of Harrow County” included in this issue. A flash fiction piece of a man deer hunting, but he learns that the deer he shots is not a normal animal….

Harrow County is Halloween creepy, worthy of being a descendent of those spooky stories around the campfire and hearth.

5 “Halloween Worthy” stars.

Pamela K. Kinney

Comic Review: Harrow County #5 from Dark Horse

HARROW COUNTY #5

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Tyler Crook

Cover Artist: Tyler Crook
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Publication Date: September 09, 2015

Dark Horse Comics

Format:FC, 32 pages; Ongoing

Price:$3.99

UPC:7 61568 26606 1 00511

Preview

“Genuinely creepy and engaging.”—Mark Millar

After uncovering Harrow County’s twisted history and her own bizarre connection to the populace, Emmy forges a new and profound connection to the land and its creatures—but a familiar and sinister presence lurks just over the county lines . . .

“Harrow County is worth checking out if you’re a horror-comic fan!”—Clive Barker

Emmy feels alone in Harrow County, though life has eased for her. She wonders if she’ll ever be free as the one beast haunting the graveyard that had been left and forgotten by the witch Hester. Worse, one of the townsfolk approaches her about doing harm to a man he thinks is trying to woo his wife from him, but Emmy says no. That she does no harm to anyone. Makes one wonder as he watches her with narrow eyes, what he will do in a future issue.

There is even a true tale written by Ma’at Crook of when he once worked at a movie theater, The Tower (another owned by same owner, Temecula, was nearby) haunted by El Guapo. He began the job not believing in ghosts, but soon experienced paranormal activity. At first, he could explain them away. But the activity grew worse, where he could not explain them away. I won’t go on to say what happened, you have to read it. But it was refreshing as someone who has written nonfiction ghost books herself, to read something like this in a horror comic about ghosts and witches.

Another refreshing thing was a tale of Harrow County, “The Bat House,” written and drawn by Tyler Crook, and colored by Ma’at Crook. This talks about a house with many bats in its attic. Children would dare each other to see how close they could come to that attic, with bat dropping covering the walls and a terrible stench. One boy was said to have taken the dare. Was this the boy skin that talks to Emmy? Makes one wonder.

Dark and eerie, Harrow County #5, is darkly reminisce of true unsettling tales I used to read, like novels like The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and old horror comics from the ‘60s.

I give Harrow County #5 five sheep haints.

Pamela Kinney

Comic Review: Harrow County #4 Dark Horse

HARROW COUNTY #4

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Tyler Crook

Cover Artist: Tyler Crook
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Publication Date: August 12, 2015

Dark Horse Comics

Format:FC, 32 pages; Ongoing

UPC:7 61568 26606 1 00411

Preview

“Genuinely creepy and engaging.”—Mark Millar
Kept prisoner by a monster of her own creation, Emmy is forced to confront the truth about the evil witch of Harrow County and the power she wields!
* Featuring two backup stories exclusive to the single issues!
* The chilling ongoing series from Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook (The Sixth Gun) continues!

Poor Emmy has been running all night from her father, the townsfolk who want to lynch her as a witch and even herself as she wondered if she deserved to be killed. She ran into a dark thing who said she, or the witch Hester, had commanded it. Upset that she forgot about it, too. When she runs away from it, out into the road and is almost hit by a truck driven by the town pharmacist, who kidnaps her and takes her to his home. It is there he makes her remember who she really is and even who many of the local folk are. But I won’t give any spoiler here. But go get it—there are surprises in store.

Harrow County becomes less and less a comic book and more and more a spooky folktale mountain folk told around the hearth on a cool autumn night in October, one about witches, demons, and ghosts. A creepy, graveyard of great animation that lures you in.
5 haunted sheep

Pamela Kinney

Comic Review: Review: Harrow County #2 Dark Horse Comics

HARROW COUNTY #2

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Tyler Crook

Cover Artist: Tyler Crook
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Publication Date: June 10, 2015

Dark Horse

Format:FC, 32 pages; Ongoing

Price:$3.99

UPC:7 61568 26606 1 00211

Preview

An original Southern Gothic fairy tale from Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook!

As Emmy learns the secrets of her world from the strange and terrifying Tattered Skin, her father’s unusual behavior becomes ever more frightening, and the townsfolk begin to assemble with a deadly intent!

* Featuring two backup stories exclusive to the single issues!

* The chilling ongoing series from Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook (The Sixth Gun) continues!

Emmy sneaks home with the skin, or haint as she calls it, and after changing clothes, stuffs it in her bottom dresser drawer in her bedroom. She has a frightening nightmare that night and on awakening finds the skin trying to get out of her drawer. It tries to tell her about the tree and the people gathered beneath it. One of them is her own father. So she takes off, looking for him, the skin stuffed in a bag she is carrying, She doesn’t find her father, but runs into Bernice. She begins to learn bewildering things, not knowing anything herself.

Becoming as twisted like the tree on the farmland Emmy lives on, the tale grows stranger and darker, not needing gore like modern horror stories, but disturbing enough to haunt you long after you read it.

I give Harrow County #2 five haunted sheep.

Pamela K. Kinney

Double Comic Review: Harrow County issue #1 from Dark Horse Comics

HARROW COUNTY #1
Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Tyler Crook

Cover Artist: Tyler Crook
Genre: Fantasy, Horror
Dark Horse Comics

Publication Date: May 13, 2015

Format: FC, 32 pages; Ongoing

Price: $3.99

Don’t miss the first issue of this southern gothic fairy tale from the creator of smash hit The Sixth Gun, beautifully and hauntingly realized by B.P.R.D.’s Tyler Crook!

Emmy always knew that the deep, dark woods surrounding her home crawled with ghosts, goblins, and zombies. But on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, she learns that she is connected to these creatures—and to the land itself—in a way she never imagined.

Review by Pamela K. Kinney

The comic begins with the hanging of a witch by the people of Harrow County, a backwoods area. She began as friend and neighbor of folks, curing them with whispered incantations. They turned a blind eye when cattle died in her presence. But when their children followed her to Sulfur Creek for strange baptisms and they heard of her connecting with frightening beings and beasts, feeding the creatures with babies, they shot, stabbed, hung and finally burned her to make sure she died. But as she burned, she cursed, threatening to return one day.

The story continues to a Harrow County farmer and his daughter, Emmy, years and years later. Emmy has nightmares about the crooked oak tree on the farm and senses that the shadows watch her, that maybe they are really haints. More so, her father watches her—as it appears there is something about her he knows, all connected to the dead witch.

The artwork is gloomy—perfect for a comic about a scary, supernatural tale. It gives the reader a feel of some lonely backwoods area, where only dark woods and farms miles apart abide. The story lured me in. Most of all, I cannot wait for the next issue to see what happens to Emmy next and what her father has kept from her. Harrow County will haunt the reader long after they stopped reading.I gave Harrow County, #1 5 spooky sheep. 

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Marvel 'Battle Scares #1' Comic Review

Writer: Chris Yost, Matt Fraction, Cullen Bunn

Artist: Scot Eaton

Synopsis:

Army Ranger Marcus Johnson is hip deep in fear and death in Afghanistan when the Fear Itself mega-event hits the Marvel U. Returning home due to the death of his mother nothing is as cut and dried as it seems. Marcus is a wanted man, there's a mystery over his mothers 'supposed' murder and both Marvel's baddest Merc's and the toughest super's are after Marcus, but why? What exactly is the mystery of Marcus Johnson and how could he tear the Marvel Universe apart?

REVIEW

The silhouetted form of Marcus Johnson has been hinted at as a big noise from Marvel for some time now. Pimped as a major status quo shaking character Johnson is being billed as a Rick Jones for a new Generation. Where Jones was the psychedelic Everyman for the stoner generation, Johnson seems to be the exact opposite. The disenfranchised patriot coming home to a dead mother and a country plagued by powers and recession. A country he's spilled blood, sweat and tears for on the dusty plains of Taliban occupied Afghanistan.

According to writer Chris Yost: During Fear Itself "a very bad person learned a very big secret. The very bad person then used the insanity of the Serpent's attacks as cover to kill a school teacher in Atlanta, Georgia. It seems like not such a big thing, but it sets everything into motion." and that school teacher was Marcus Johnson's mother. In what is Being set up as the biggest secret of the Marvel U, it was pretty important that this story delivered some damn solid foundations and a gripping opener. To Yost and plotting wunderkinds Fraction and Bunn's credit, they have done just that.

This story sets up the all important Marcus Johnson, a non powered man, albeit bad-ass soldier as a real life figure set within extraordinary surroundings. The opening if Afghanistan is a great lead into the home front mystery and tells us everything we need to know about Johnson in the first few panels. He's a Ranger, he's cool under fire and in the face of insurmountable odds he will not quit. This may be romanticising the concept, but alas this is fiction and where a grittier writer like Ennis or Bendis say, might have jumped the internal monologue and balls to the wall heroics in favour of something less grandiose, it works here and makes the new kid on the block seem dangerous but fallible, vulnerable to the incredible circumstances he'll come to find himself in.

When the mystery begins it gets straight to the point. Captain America's in on it, something clandestine is going on behind the scenes and Johnson is no sooner done grieving than he's plunged into life or death scenarios with some by the throat action. Scott Eaton's pencils are clean if not slightly unremarkable. This is serviceable art that doesn't overwhelm the story, which here is the main focus.

With the characters introduced and the mystery primed this is exactly what you want from a first issue, with more than enough questions and promises of high concept action to draw you back for a second. I found I instantly like Marcus as a character, injected with just the right amount of balls, empathy and a genuine modernity that a lot of contemporary heroes lack. Johnson is a man of his times and right now he might be the most relevant character being written by Marvel.

Not just because he's a Ranger serving in a war that has been raging for the last decade plus, but because unlike so many other old-school capes, he's ethnically relevant to a generation of Black American's. A generation who are coming back to comics now primarily due to the likes of New Ultimate Spidey Miles Morales, but also the big screen Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) and characters like Luke Cage heading high profile super-teams like The New Avengers.

Where Rick Jones was the Everyman for a generation of post war kids dropping acid and listening to The Kinks, Marcus Johnson is a man who's seen the real demons of battle during war time and returned to a country that doesn't necessarily represent what he went to war for. His journey while a fictional one is very relevant and very real.

Running parallel to Yost, Fraction and Bunn's other brainchild Fear Itself: The Fearless, this is a book that will not only redefine the Marvel U, but reshape it in the coming year. The real question though it just who exactly is Marcus Johnson? What is his place in the Marvel U and what is the mystery that's so big it's being billed as the daddy of all Marvel Mysteries?

I'll definitely be sticking around to find out.

3/5

By: Mark McCann

For more comic reviews check out Bad Haven.