Review by Frank Plowright

Considering children’s horror animation Are You Afraid of the Dark? was inspired by horror comic anthologies, it’s only right and proper that there’s now a graphic novel featuring a trio of spooky treats all written by young adult novelist Tehlor Lay Mejia.

The premise is that a bunch of kids gather around the campfire at night and tell each other scary stories. However, the Midnight Society can be a jaded lot, so will the title story as told by newcomer Alicia satisfy them? It concerns Fernando, a child too often left hungry and alone, and without guidance he has no boundaries. After an encounter with a witch in a tree Fernando starts seeing strange and scary things, yet they’re only visible to him and the strange old woman who lives next door, called a witch herself by Fernando’s father.

Artistic collaborators Justine and Alexis Hernandez provide a fine contrast between the ordinary and the supernatural, and their pages carefully show the deprivation Fernando endures. However, while Mejia’s story works on one level, including the historical backstory undermines it. If a bit of salt is all it takes to prevent a threat, surely someone would have hit on the plan a few decades earlier.

Kaylee Rowena draws Alexis’ second attempt to scare the Midnight Society, ‘The Tale of the Haunting of Bus #13’, delivering a sympathetic lead character in poor Isabella. She’s so upset by her parents constantly arguing that she runs away from home and almost ends up trapped on a ghostly bus constantly circling the district at night. Despite repeating the visual trick of a character seeing horrific visions instead of what’s truly in front them, this is a more satisfying spooky story, with an upbeat resolution.

Junyi Wu’s art over the framing sections is simple, but ordinary, and it takes the colours being reduced on ‘The Tale of the Stray Comet’ to bring out his skill and charm. Alicia involves herself prevailing on her father to allow a stray dog to come home with the family, naming him Comet. Pretty soon strange things start happening in the neighbourhood. It’s the most imaginative content for steering well clear of themes common to supernatural chillers.

Young adult readers should enjoy these none too challenging stories, but is it really wise to have one cynical member of the Midnight Society calling them out as lame?