Review by Ian Keogh

Will’s mother hasn’t got a lot of money, so even when he learns about a well equipped youth club with a free bus service, the three dollars asked could be a problem. He’s contrasted with Anita, whose beloved grandmother has just died, and believes she’s been dropped off at the club just because her parents want shot of her for a while. For her age she’s an extremely talented artist, and Will’s determined he’s going to write comics.

There’s an initial predictability to Haunted Comic Club, but Josh Tierney and Caitlin Soliman offset that with charm. Verbally and visually it’s easy to sympathise with Anita and Will, as both are isolated within the massive youth club, but why is it haunted? Well, Will overhears some older kids talking about a volunteer who drowned in the swimming pool, yet still manifests as a ghost. Some well plotted sequences convince Anita and Will it’s a true story.

Perhaps the feeling is that children in poor families want to take a break from poverty when reading, but it’s rare to see it as an ongoing issue in a graphic novel for younger readers, and the honesty is welcome. Also well handled is how Haunted Comic Club is a story, but the journey of Anita and Will’s collaborations offers children a selection of methods of how to go about creating a comic, and also emphasises how there are times when drawing is difficult.

Is that included at Soliman’s request? Her expressive cartooning defines the cast sympathetically, and she knows when to move the viewpoint in close for an expression and when to show the children dwarfed by the vast youth club building. Isolation is an ongoing theme, an the size of the surroundings fits that.

A surprising lack of sentimentality applies to the final scenes, Tierney messing with expectations a couple of times, not least with the clever way we say goodbye to Anita and Will. Engaging, surprising and uplifting, Haunted Comic Club is a winner.