Creepy Cute Stabby Chic: the Dwellings #3 Fundrazr Campaign

Creepy cute. Stabby chic. Bloody adorable! These sweet-but-swearing cartoon characters pulled from the mind of Jay Stephens are back and ready to drag us back into a haunting familiar scare. Dwellings, a horror comic anthology series that is definitely-not-for-kids-but-looks-like-it-should-be, is back in another fundraiser campaign with a third issue opening for pre-orders tomorrow.

All looks fine and well in the town of Elwich, but readers beware. There are plenty of cute jump scares and body horror  along with well-timed dark comedy to turn this Saturday morning-cartoon-look-alike comic into something unlike you’ve ever seen. Even if you think you’ve seen this all done before, you haven’t. Jay Stephens and Black Eye Comics know exactly how to make a comic like Dwellings work. 

The first issue of Dwellings, given the title “They Know”, immediately let’s reader know what kind of comic twill be as soon as you open it up. The inside front cover is jam packed full of 2”x 3” in-world and situationally related product advertisements for what you are about to journey through. And that’s before we even begin digging in to the story. And I do mean ..digging in.

As suggested by the issue’s title, and a very specifically charged and immediate encounter between a couple characters (one who we quickly will get to know), the mystery of what they know, as insinuated by the title, becomes revealed. Oh, and there’s smiling, cackling, eye-socket gouging crows. 

 

Moving narrative along to the second issue, things get ..more adorable. If retro horror chic or dressing up body horror in all sorts of creepy cute ways is not your thing then this may not be a crowdfunding campaign that suits you, but if it is then you’re in for a massive treat. “Second Tongue” is the title for issue two and despite how adorable the art remains, the story (set in Elwich once again) turns up the heat. Things get scary-weird, and remains tastefully done.

Absurd violence, gruesome body horror, turns and twists involving the occult, all the ingredients you’d expect from a comic resembling anything else is all here in Dwellings. Dark comedy, bloody cute characters, in-world fake advertising, yellow-tinted pulp page interiors, all within thirty-plus pages of some of the best horror I’ve read. The presentation of the comic is so sweet you’re bound to get diabetes, but with enough horror to have you never look the same way at a crow again. 

The third issue, “Quiet Suki”, opens for pre-order in a crowdfunding campaign with plenty of stretch goals to choose from. Get the trading cards. Take part in the EC horror variant raffle. Pick up the risograph print or mini movie poster. There’s also original Dwellings art pages! So many add-on’s!

Sign on early and spread the word that the town of Elwich has more story to tell. This time it’s told in part by a hand puppet that won’t shut up.

My browser is cued up. How about yours. Get in. Get yours. Read Dwellings. Read more comics. 

The Dwellings #3 fundrazr campaign begins Tuesday, February 15th at 8am.

Sneak Peak of “Quiet Suki” pgs 1-4