SiKtC Volume 1: Slaughter-Time

James Tynion IV has created something special here for horror fans. This trade collects the first 5 issues of his new series and it is a perfect start to get readers fully invested!

We begin by following the gruesome tale of James who while playing truth are dare with his friends and after he tells them his chilling story of seeing a monster they go to investigate themselves with James the only one returning and claiming to the police and his concerned principal that he seen nothing but only heard screams.

I like this dialogue between James and the adults as you can tell he doesn’t want to talk whether that be down to ptsd or just a fear of no one believing him but he can’t sense that any adult he talks to is just as petrified if not more so than the children about the current events. That theme lasts throughout the book as we see parents of Archers peak in very sad states struggling with the death of their children. Tynion’s ability to dialogue those emotions is impeccable!

We and James soon meet our next main character who is a blonde-haired enigmatic woman with distinctive green eyes who has been travelling around killing these monsters with a fitting name of Erica Slaughter (hats off to a great name choice). James now wants to assist her as he wants to help kill the monsters who took his friends and even opens up to Erica about what he really seen and this is where Dell’edra and Muertos artwork really step up as the scenes of violence and gore are worthy of any top horror book which is exactly what this is.

The rest of the book is shrouded in mystery between a behind the scenes figure who keeps calling Erica and even gets in contact with the Archers Peak police flexing the unexplained authority this person has and keeps us readers interested to find out why or how. We learn that children only can see the monsters not adults due to their delicate minds. Also, Erica has a ragdoll octopus that she communicates with that I believe has a trapped soul inside it. Again, a lot going on to keep the reader invested!

We end the book full of gory art action shots in confrontation of the monster, the near death of James and a potential new character in the form of Tommy. Tynion also manages to heighten the level of threat as Erica states this beast is much more dangerous than she assumed again opening more questions to the reader!