Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: brett uren, Comics, horror, indie Comics, jon scrivens, little terrors, patrick cline, preview, Review, small press, zombie apocalypse, zombies

Bring on the Little Terrors

Published Tue, 01 Dec 2015 10:00:31 -0600

by Joe Glass

Comments

By Joe Glass

Little Terrors: Desiccated Youth is the first collection from creators Jon Scrivens, Brett Uren and Patrick Cline.

Set in the UK in a sleepy town post-apocalypse, at first you'd think there's nothing new or original with the set up. In a comics landscape where one of the most popular and well known series is The Walking Dead, post-apocalyptic zombie titles are a dime a dozen among indie titles. So what any one of these projects is its own unique hook to show what they bring to the table.

Little Terrors does that, in an interesting way.

There's the superficial, surface level way: in our post-apocalypse, which is still mysterious to us by the end of this first volume, our 'heroes' are a group of teenage boys – who have all been turned into monsters. Their own physiological changes are as mysterious to them as what has happened to the world, and thus also to the reader, but it gives the feel that there is a lot more to what is going on than may meet the eye. Certainly, in the course of this small part of the story, we get hints to hidden secrets of the group.

The other way in which this story feels different: whereas many zombie apocalypse tales may revolve around trying to build action and go for all out action sequences or gore, Little Terrors has instead a slightly different effect: nostalgia.

I couldn't help but feel myself reminiscing about my own teen years and my friend groups, particularly the other young boys I spent my time with. Not that we spent our time fighting for our lives and facing off against gargoyle monks and zombies, but hey, it was certainly on our minds.

The camaraderie between the characters feels very familiar, and though we are thrown into events at the deep end with little explanation, we feel connected to the characters and understand them through the books ability to instill this sense of remembrance in the reader.

This sense of nostalgia was brought home two-fold for me by the art. The character design of each of the kids, each reminiscent of a classic monster (zombie, Frankenstein, skeleton, devil etc) reminded me of my childhood collection/addiction: Monsters in my Pocket. A series of small plastic/rubber models of classical monsters, there were literally hundreds of the things. The design in this series for some reason instantly brought them to mind for me, and the wave of nostalgia carried me away.

The collection ends with some origins of the boys, which are much darker and more violent in imagery than the rest of the book, as handled by Uren. The origins are twisted and dark and carry a sense of the modern fable to them all too, and are some truly horrific ideas that come across as very chilling.

All in all, the collection sets up an interesting world filled with loads of mysteries and the sense of adventures yet to come, and I for one would love to see how the creators continue the sense of nostalgia and remembrance in the future of the series.

You can follow Little Terrors on Facebook, or buy the series here. The team will also be doing a signing at Geek's Boutique, in Watford, UK between 2pm and 7pm this Friday.

Joe Glass is a Bleeding Cool contributor and comic creator. Writer of The Pride, the series about a team of LGBTQ superheroes fighting for representation and diversity. One of the Top 25 Comixology Submit Titles of 2014, you can get The Pride here and on Comixology. He is also a co-writer of horror comedy series, Stiffs, available on Comixology and here.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!