[This is] an amazing creation!

I had heard Hannah on panels before and she always came across as super clever and funny. Her book completely reflects that, the story has layers upon layers of history, culture, politics, mysticism wrapped up in delicious satire. So complex the relationships between people and times that it starts with reference pages for the characters. As soon as I finished it I felt I needed to read it again to begin to appreciate the more subtle references.

My eyes were not drawn to this graphic style because they like clear distinct outlines for everything. But the style itself is a great representation of the ideas within: grey, detailed and often opaque. Once I trained my eyes to take it all in I found many small details to delight in!

Great stuff Hannah, thank you for creating it, it must have taken bloody ages!

A compelling folk horror about two murders half a century apart and “the kind of evil that goes fusty in cold parlours”. Hannah Eaton summons darkness with a crosshatched pencil, mixing well-observed family vignettes with pitchfork murders, racism, rotting fruit and ritual gatherings in the Harvester car park. Set half in the 1950s, half in the present day, it bears a great weight of history, yet fizzes with very contemporary concerns. 

This is a story of everyday folk horror. While it obviously takes inspiration from the likes of The Wicker Man (a film I must confess that I've never seen), it never goes to such extreme lengths as that does. In fact, with its focus on village life and domestic affairs, it very much feels like the epitome of the banality of evil (I could believe that it's the Mirror Universe's version of Ambridge). In a rural England only slightly sideways from our own, there's been a murder, one that closely parallels a similar murder from 65 years ago. But the villagers aren't exactly keen to co-operate with the authorities.

Interleaving events in both timelines, it's a compelling, if somewhat grim, read. While the overt racism of the historical timeline has been suppressed by the present one, it's been turned into the genteel, very English kind, combined with NIMBY-ism and an inward-looking outlook that fears difference.

The scene of the village council (the "ealders") meeting in a home living room is possibly one of the most chilling in the book, as they talk usual village council stuff and then casually mention (and joke) about evicting a tenant who's behind on her rent.

There's hope in the next generation, as we see the youngest members of our PoV family interested in the outside world and trying their best to effect change, but being hampered by age and powerlessness.

The author spends a lot of time with the police investigation in the past, focussing on their credulousness and willingness to believe the first explanation that comes to mind, so that they can get home to their tea. The modern investigation gets almost no screen time at all, and we don't really spend any time with them.

The art is all pencil work, with no pens to sharpen it. It's an odd style, one that I've not seen before in a professional work, but it does seem to fit the folk horror style.

Giving a score to a book like this is difficult. I can very much see the artistic merit in it, looking at bigotry in all its mundane forms. It's got important things to say and is just as relevant in 2021 as it might have been in 1950. But, as a non-white, liberal city-dweller, it left me uncomfortable and depressed. Yes, it made me feel things, but I didn't necessarily enjoy it.

This mystery-thriller-folk-horror is a beautifully crafted and well-observed slice of English life. Full of complex and believable characters, the novel features timely commentary on insular communities and the structural and physical violence they are capable of inflicting on ‘outsiders’.

A pair of murders has occurred 65 years apart, uncanny echoes of each other, in the ancient woodland beside Blackwood, a small town in middle England. Both evidence and local lore suggest overtones of ritual or of the occult. Past and present collide in the mind of 93-year-old Peg, while through her great-grandson 11-year-old Mason, and other members of her family, we soon discover that the town and Peg’s own life are full of secrets. Blackwood gradually reveals the dark soul of the town, where local politics and the human heart conspire to preserve England – its meadows, lanes and shadows – at any cost.

My thoughts

Blackwood is a graphic novel whose plot revolves around two murders in a small town, from which the title of the book derives. We as the reader are brought at varying stages throughout the book from present day, back to the 1950’s where the first murder occurred.

Police investigating both murders are given little to work with from those who live in the town. They appear to be quite a closed off bunch, and while rumours circulate, nothing concrete ever seems to manifest. However, both investigations seem to point to one thing – Witchcraft.

The investigators are told to approach this line of enquiry tentitively – but there does seem to be something different about the town. There are more than a few strange things going on and indications of occult and wiccan traditions are evident from the off – as seen in the opening sections of the wedding.

The small, sleepy English town gives off a real Wickerman vibe; in other words some of this is quite scary. Not in a jump off the page kind of way, but it is very creepy. The art work, which is done in pencil throughout, adds to the darkness of the story.

I was immediately drawn in to the mystery of the two murders and found this one almost impossible to put down. I read it in two sittings. If you are a fan of graphic novels, or things that go bump in the night, then this one is definitely for you. Highly recommended.

Let’s talk about #Blackwood. No I’m not referring to that lesser spotted region just shy of Newport. I’m talking about this dark and eerie #folkhorror infused #graphicnovel from @myriad_editions.

It is SO good! The only other graphic novel that has ever really grabbed my attention is #MyFavoriteThingIsMonsters by the high-priestess of pen and ink: @emilferris (which you will know I think is phenomenal). This though, has made me think I should be seeking out all dark and knarly entrants to this genre. Horror meets graphic novel is definitely something I want to be seeking out more.

Without spoiling the plot, this one shares the power of MFTIM’s ability to explore the darkest recesses of humanity and draw out truth- to uncover unspoken secrets. It makes us see ugliness and to question. It also scares and unsettles- painting a rural idyll full of ancient way and attitudes- some that could do with being stamped out. Quite frankly, it is fantastic. One my #weirdwalk friends will definitely appreciate.

So if you know of any spooky graphic novels- let me know in the comments. 2 makes a habit! To be fair- #FungustheBogeyman was so much loved, as a child that the cover was falling off, so I should have seen this coming!

Really enjoyed reading Blackwood. A gripping folk horror mystery, and so much more, drawn with beautiful pencil lines.

Arrived in the post this morning from #myriadeditions the latest dark, disturbing and decidedly delectable graphic novel by the amazing #hannaheaton . From the acclaimed author of #namingmonsters I can't wait for a dark and stormy night to lose myself in #blackwood

I've received some amazing bookmail that I really want to share with you guys, starting with Blackwood. ⁣I love graphic novels, but my reading list is so long that they've dipped in priority lately. However, Blackwood reminded me why I love the medium so much. I devoured it in a couple of hours, and afterwards felt like I'd gone for a brisk walk up a hill. It delves into folk horror with confidence, and explores the echoes of time and our own prejudices; I've also been doing a lot of research about local folklore for my next novel, so this arrived at the perfect time! ⁣Haunting, compelling but filled with warmth and compassion, Blackwood is a triumph. Can't recommend highly enough. ⁣

It’s all about personal tastes in the end, but when I assessed the many horror-themed and Halloween-adjacent review copies despatched from kind creators, PR sentinels and hopeful publishers this month (thank you one and all!), from very early on I knew we had to end on this one. Read on, read Blackwood itself and learn just why…

As nations and cultures, we all think we’re special, but every so often a piece of art comes along and you think “no other nationality could have produced this…” That’s an especially inescapable conclusion after indulging in the glorious melange that is this intriguing annal of Albion.

Rendered and reproduced as soft and subtle pencil drawings, Blackwood is quintessentially English: channelling our beloved countryside, quirky folk of different classes (co-existing if not actually living in harmony), witchcraft, cosy murder-mysteries, corrupt councils, devil-worshipping mystic masons, ordinary people well in over their heads, inbred insularity and racism, an extremely reserved, controlled sense of events getting away from you. There’s also a chilling sense that there’s always more going on under the surface of civility and respectability than meets your eye…

Best of all, as this tale of identical rural murders occurs simultaneously 65 years apart, we get to see – up close and personal – just how much and how little society has changed, especially when the modern-day killing draws in troublesome nosy strangers from outside the community… and even foreigners…

Augmented by an Afterword detailing the generational tale’s real-world inspirations, this is a yarn that only comes from gifted, thoughtful artists like Hannah Eaton (check out Naming Monsters while you’re at it) who have seen a bit of the world before settling down to devise their own.

Channelling delicious notes of Gary Spencer Milledge’s Strangehaven and the first series of Gracechurch, this very human-scaled drama is funny, scary and seductively compelling, like the best Scandi-dramas, but with tea and a Victoria Sponge all laid on.

Is Blackwood a heartfelt paean to a forgotten place and time or a devious attack on oppressive social structures and change-based bias that still hold us apart and down? Yes, no, maybe and mind your own business. It is a chilling, delightful and utterly compelling mystery that, once read, will not be forgotten.

So, go do that then, right?

Nikki: This intrigued me straight away as a lover of supernatural, weird stuff. Quite a few interweaving stories: it’s really quite disturbing. It’s brilliantly dark. And everywhere there is this corn dolly… you see it in people’s houses and the sketches and everything. It just sets you off. All pencil drawings, very intricate, nothing has got a straight line, it’s very intricate and detailed. It’s an amazing book. I thoroughly enjoyed it; it’s refreshing to read something different and twisty and spooky, especially at this time because it’s coming up to Halloween.

Our Graphic Novel of The Month for October is Myriad’s Blackwood – a period murder mystery with a horror twist from the creator of the acclaimed Naming Monsters (shortlisted for the 2012 First Graphic Novel Competition and the Graphic Scotland 9th Art Award in 2013).

A pair of murders has occurred 65 years apart, uncanny echoes of each other, in the ancient woods beside Blackwood. Evidence and local lore suggest overtones of ritual or of the occult, but despite thorough police investigations, no charges are made. Peg, in her nineties, and her great-grandson, 11-year-old Mason, hold clues to the town’s secrets, but Peg’s dementia dismisses her as unreliable, and no-one wants to listen to a child.

Meanwhile, the Ealders meet to discuss the town’s ‘problems’, not least the new-age travellers and immigrant families. In a late-night gathering, these menfolk venture into the woods, dance naked around a bonfire and sacrifice a dead dog, in the hopes of preserving their own inviolability and that of the town.

Eaton made a strong impression with her debut and this latest comic proves she is no flash in the frying pan. As with her previous work, there is a level of intricacy and authenticity that helps carry the story. The Weston and Brennan families are given detailed family trees to help guide readers through the timeline of the two murders whilst Eaton develops the characters. Both historical periods are given equal care, woven together in a way that deeply enhances the murder mystery, whilst also building something far more sinister in the disturbing history of Blackwood and those who control it behind the scenes. All the while showing the impact the murders in both periods have had on the Weston and Brennan families, as well as the dangers of being too steeped in tradition and unwilling to accept outsider perspectives.

The art is highly detailed and evokes both time periods perfectly, showing a level of research and care that many reader will appreciate. It is also a style that lends itself to several different tones whether it be gritty murder, or the almost supernatural ambience the story takes at certain times. The Ealders in particular benefit from Eaton’s handiwork, with their ghoulish appearance and behavior made all the more disturbing.

This is another strong showing from Hannah Eaton and perfect for Halloween reading. All fans of horror comics will want to give this a look.

Blackwood by Hannah Eaton is out now from Myriad Editions (9781908434715, p/b, £18.99)

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If anything you’ve read about on our blog catches your eye, consider ordering from your local bookshop. Find yours here. #ChooseBookshops

A mother takes her children out into a cold, rainy night. Suitcases in hand, they walk off into the woods near their home town, never to be seen again. Flashing back some seventy years, a man from the same locality is murdered in the woods. How are these two events related? Hannah Eaton’s new graphic novel ‘Blackwood’ invites its readers on a voyage through small-town superstition and long held family secrets.

Eaton was shortlisted for the 2012 First Graphic Novel competition, eventually publishing her debut the following year. ‘Naming Monsters’ juxtaposed scenes from its teenage narrator’s everyday life in London with stories of the creatures of myth and legend – the Incubus, the Golem, the Black Dog, and others. This intelligent and witty book used monsters to, in Eaton’s words, “represent the unrepresentable or unspeakable elements of her [the narrator’s] own experience.”

‘Blackwood’ expands on many of the themes in that debut, but now the scope is wider and more cinematic. Tellingly, the book begins with a pair of tree diagrams detailing the dramatis personae and their inter-relationships – a helpful reference point for an ambitious story which spans seven decades across some 368 pages.

Eaton certainly pulls it off: the dialogue is particularly well observed, and each of the characters have their own individual speech patterns. Meanwhile the drawings, executed expressively in soft pencil, reflect the emotions of the characters, and complement the text with beautifully observed details that reward close examination – from the handmade ‘Keep Out’ sign on a child’s bedroom door, to the cheap Van Gogh print decorating Peg’s front room.

Eaton has lived in Brighton for 12 years, and finds much inspiration in the city. “I love living somewhere people come for rituals and special occasions,” she tells us, “from Pride to hen nights to sea swimmers under the full moon, and the religious people who leave offerings of oranges and plaster gods on the shore.”

Eaton’s fascination with the superstitions and rituals of England provide, inevitably, a central theme in ‘Blackwood’. A shady group of the town’s self-styled ‘Ealders’ meet, for example, to discuss immigrants and new-age travellers, before committing a bizarre animal sacrifice in the woods. It’s deliciously strange, disturbing and comical.

In the book’s afterword, the author reflects on the fact that this is “a completely fictional story about mostly true stories” – and it’s undeniable that ‘Blackwood’, despite these fantastical elements, remains anchored in truth, examining vital themes of immigration, race and identity. All human behaviour is on some level absurd, the author seems to say, and this could be any English town. Her work always maintains this tension between the bizarre and the humdrum. In ‘Blackwood’ Eaton successfully evokes a world which is strange and bizarre – but often uncomfortably recognizable.

Blackwood is out now. Purchase direct from Myriad Editions.
www.myriadeditions.com/creator/hannah-eaton

“You’re telling me, I live there! It makes The Wicker Man look like Balamory.”

That description of the titular town of Blackwood comes from one of the book’s large cast of characters around the midway point of Hannah Eaton’s eerie graphic novel. It’s a fitting encapsulation not simply of the fictional locale of her story but also of its thematic explorations. Blackwood is steeped in tradition, history and a sense of community. But that latter quality extends only to its established locals, as outsiders are quick to discover.

Ostensibly Blackwood is a murder mystery but in reality it’s a far, far more layered work than that. In the ancient woodland that surrounds the rural town two very similar murders occur but decades apart. In 1950 a local man is killed in what appears to have been a ritualistic slaying with links to witchcraft. In the present day a homeless man dies in a murder that bears the same marks. As both deaths are investigated the timeline switches backwards and forwards across the decades as secrets are revealed, hidden truths behind locked doors unravel, and the darker side of Blackwood comes to the forefront…

The initial hook of these dual murder cases, though, is simply an entry point into the wider world of Blackwood and the bleakness it conceals. It’s the story of the Weston and Brennan families, and the consequences of the events and family secrets that have shaped the courses of their lives over the years, drives the narrative onwards. Added to this potent mix in the different time zones are the strange cabal of councillors and local businessmen using mystic rites to protect their environment from outside influences; a decadent peer with his own zoo and a workforce of younger men he uses as his playthings; two sets of investigating police officers who must face suspicion and distrust from the locals; and a young boy whose investigations into the disappearance and incarceration of people without trial in the vicinity are ignored by the adults around him.

With so many plot threads feeding into an overarching storyline it may come as little surprise to hear that there are two pages of “family tree” illustrations at the beginning of Blackwood to ensure that readers can keep track of the vast number of cross-generational players in the cast. Eaton slowly builds up the multiple mysteries in chronological increments, shifting between the two historical periods in a manner that allows each to mirror the other, as we slowly piece together how the past has influenced the present in regards not just to the brutal crimes we witness but of the family dynamics and town politics of Blackwood too.

There is much to unpack in these pages but for all its folk horror overtones this is a strikingly contemporary book. Blackwood is a locale that represents the small-minded, parochial self-interest and bigotry of Middle England in darkly outlandish microcosm. What makes events there all the more disturbing is that a year or two ago it would have felt like a fictional warning shot, a moral object lesson that extrapolated current events. Now it feels more like a reflection of them and that is the most horrifying aspect of Blackwood by far.

The hazy, dreamlike artwork perfectly serves a story that feels both occasionally otherworldly in tone and yet firmly rooted in a most recognisable reality. Eaton’s time-jumping mystery crosses generations and decades with a frighteningly relevant mix of folklore and social commentary. A quietly brooding indictment of British insularity that is all the more sinister for its unsettling familiarity.

There’s something inherently captivating about the sleepy British village. Many of us dream of escaping there, or live somewhere like it already. Chocolate box cottages, village greens, pretty churches, and hundreds of years of history to call upon. Inevitably they have their own traditions, folk tales and darker sides too, and this aspect has equal appeal. It’s what 60s’ shows like The Avengers were built upon, why the Wicker Man still captivates and even why Radiohead’s Burn The Witch video draws you in. The possibility of a creepier, more unsettling side to Britain is just too irresistible to pass up.

Hannah Eaton jumps in with both feet with her book Blackwood. A community with many secrets, all slowly revealed as the tale unfolds. At its heart are two murders, 65 years apart. However, they’re not the only deaths, or misery, to befall the place. We’re introduced to Peg, clearly challenged by the early stages of dementia, who somehow is the connecting piece between the murders. It’s around her, and her family, that the main narrative revolves. There are other characters too, from the town’s ealdors and their rituals, to the investigating policemen across two eras, plus the innocents caught up in the greater conspiracy. It’s a large cast list to keep track of, but Eaton guides you through and delivers with the conclusion.

The book opens with a wedding and you’re quickly unsettled by the off-kilter proceedings. Normal enough on the face of it, but not quite right. This is highlighted by the arrival of guests from the nearby town who mistakenly visit the wrong church. But for all the strange goings-on, it’s the character-driven narrative that sells the book to the reader. Regardless of where and how you live, your everyday life becomes your normal, and whatever struggles you’re presented with they still boil down to family and friendship, right and wrong, justice and injustice. Following how the characters navigate these problems is what keeps you turning the pages.

Eaton makes no bones about being inspired by The Wicker Man and many other British stories and folk tales. No doubt the corn dollies and Black Dog will be familiar to you. It reminded me much of another great comic series, Strangehaven, but where Blackwood takes you is somewhere very much of Eaton’s own devising. Her illustrative style, using pencil and rounded panels, evokes a dreamlike quality. It’s softer and somehow reassuring, making the harsher, blunter aspects of the story more visceral.

Blackwood might be a village of the rural British countryside, but much of its bleaker moments and darker problems are those common to everyone everywhere. When the superstition is stripped back the real horror is there to see.

This is only Hannah Eaton’s second book (I’ll be looking out for her first, Naming Monsters) and yet it thrums with storytelling confidence, great dialogue, and fully-rounded characters. She’s a welcome addition to British comics’ talent and this book is sure to get her noticed internationally. I hope we see plenty more from her.