The Red Book

This comic is practice at building tension. Plot and characters are exchanged for singular unsettling panels. The Red Book is essentially an anthology series with some of the ghosts recurring from chapter to chapter. Every chapter is a single scene up to twenty panels long portraying the moment the human and ghost meet. For example, a girl texting on her walk home starts being chased by a ghost in the shadows. That's where the chapter always ends though. The tension is built but leaves you thinking about the outcome of the situation. It works well enough here but there are no deep or engaging stories,mostly cheap scares. Characters are nonexistant. The protagonist of each chapter is impossible to differentiate from the last. The focus is on the particular scenario or ghost. You're not supposed to care about any of the characters or who they are, but anything is better than nothing. The art is incredibly mediocre 99% of the time. Basic character designs and simple backgrounds are the majority if what you'll be looking at. The other 1% is ghosts who are given extra attention. Dark lines, unsettling faces, contorted bodies, it's all done well. It was basically the entire point of the comic as explained in the epilogue. The Red Book was OK. It was a short read good for getting me into the October mood. The ghosts were drawn well, but everything else was painfully average. If you're looking for something short to read during October give it a go. Otherwise it's easy to skip. Plot:4/10 Characters: 3/10 Art: 5/10 Enjoyment: 6/10 Overall: 4.7/10