Something is Killing the Children
I read through the collections 1 - 7 of this series, and will only add on when collection 8 hits the library.
Something is Killing the children is a great series that starts off with the premise that monsters are somehow being summoned/created by kids telling scary stories to each other (or maybe even to themselves). These monsters then start killing other kids, and depending on what type they are, they grow stronger either by becoming stronger themselves, or because they can spawn a brood of offspring to terrorize the rest of the towns.
There is a secret order of monster killers, and they specialize in making sure the monsters are killed and perhaps just as important, making sure public information about the monsters never make it out. Anyone who’s ever been involved with information integrity knows the impossibility of such a thing once the group grows beyond a very small number, so that is just something you will have to suspend your disbelief on.
The action centers around Erika Slaughter of the House of Slaughter, and you find out about her backstory in books 2 or 3. The pace of the comics so far has been 1 monster to kill, then backstory, then drama, then backstory, then fast forward with the story, and then more backstory. It makes a nice change of pace when it happens and I can’t say I’m sick of the schtick yet.
The meat of the story is clearly about the Game of Thrones type backstabbing that happens within the House of the Monster Slayers. Apparently each continent has their own houses that deal with monsters, and somehow the rest of the world is unaware of this (once again, suspend the disbelief). The action and the different monster types really comes through nicely and you’re always left wondering how Erika is going to survive the next one.
All in all, the series has potential, but I fear that it will be dragged out way too long like 100 Bullets, which also had a great premise but once dragged out too long, lost a ton of what made it special to begin with.
A good recommend here, not high, but not mild either.