“Behind You: One-Shot Horror Stories”

“The drawings are nice. Especially the people, which are as interesting as the monsters.

I guess I didn’t pay attention, because I didn’t realize that the title is very literal. Every image is about something behind you.

This book has the same problem as collected editions of The Onion. The Onion is a lot of fun, but when you read a ton of it together, you get bored. The edginess fades, the surprise fades. It works really well in a format that’s periodic rather than binge-y, and the way it’s consumed has a big effect on it. This is true for me for a lot of micro fiction, whether it be funny, scary, highly-visual, literary, whatever.

Brian Coldrick is a talented artist, for sure, and I do like that so many of the images are Halloween-centric. I would definitely read whatever he does next, and I would be very on board with a longer format. “