Twisted Dark - Disturbingly good reading

So, as I've said before, at the Bristol comic expo (http://acomicbookaddict.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/at-bristol-comic-expo-2013.html) I came across two small press books. The first was the very fun Afterlife Inc. (http://acomicbookaddict.blogspot.com/2013/05/thinks-afterlife-inc-is-comic-book-you.html) while the second was a book called Twisted Dark. Now, Twisted Dark was a book that was a whole different kettle of fish as it was an altogether darker and moodier book than I've ever seen and also turned out to be a very thought provoking title.

Bad picture by me, but Twisted Dark is still a very good book.

Twisted Dark is essentially an anthology (well 3 volumes of anthologies so far) of different and incredibly distinct stories which give a dark and disturbing insight into many facets of life. From suicidal 10 year olds to the life of a drug dealer, social media stalkers to a very angry pushman, these books are the comic book equivalent to the tv series Black Mirror, with dark, satirical stories that, overall, have little to no connection with each other (of course, some stories do contain the same characters), but do greatly emphasize real life.

Series writer Neil Gibson (no relation to Mel Gibson, as the opening preface of volume one points out to you) has created a real gem of a series here as each book contains a number of stories, all of which are incredibly compelling for their rather disturbing view of life. When I came across this book Will, the marketer at their table, told me that this was a unique horror book and, in a way, he was right. While it is not horror in the conventional sense (although there is a bit of blood and gruesomeness in a story or two), every one of the stories that is displayed give off an uneasiness and creepiness that not only do what a standard horror story is meant to do, but it also made me really think about the world we live in compared to these stories.

While the art in these books are a little hit and miss in places, depending on the story and the artist involved, overall it is all solid. There no bum panels at all as far as I could see and a lot of the time the tone of the art enhances what is already a rather creepy story (such as the final story in volume two). This is made more so by the choice of no colour in this book. I'm getting more and more into monochrone comics and this series just helps cement my view that such artwork is a great help to any comic (sorry to any colourists out there).

All in all, I love this book because not only is it highly entertaining and compelling, but because it really is great at speaking to me, in it's own way, about many common aspects of the world that we don't see. The only trouble I have now is whether to pick up volume three as a hard copy or on comixology, though this is hardly the most earth-shattering decision in the world.