Happy Halloween, listeners! This month on Collecting Issues, the monthly comic book book club, Michael and Benjamin skirt the rules to cover an anthology: Come Find Me: An Autumnal Offering.

This 2024 one-shot is published by the new, creator-owned DSTLRY Comics. It's an... interesting business model of limited digital runs and resellable digital rights. (Wait, did we just buy an NFT? Is this the blockchain?)

Curated by horror maestro Becky Cloonan, Come Find Me is a collection of six chilling mini-stories steeped in folk and medieval horror. Join us as we apply "useful frameworks" (much to Michael's disgust) to break down every tale in this unnerving collection from a lineup of incredible female and non-binary creators.

We discuss:

• "Devil's Trill" (Hamlet Machine): A sexy, weird, and wordless Faustian pact that sets a spectacular gothic tone.
• "Portorium" (Becky Cloonan): A classic tale of grave robbery, Roman gods (hello, Orcus), and why you should never steal from the dead.
• "Down by the Water" (Molly Mendoza): A beautiful, abstract, and unsettling story of gossip, grief, and... frog spawn?
• "Coal &Clover" (Vanessa R. Del Rey): A straightforward folk horror revenge story set in a brutal American company town. Don't make deals with the Fae!
• "La Chéta" (Celine Loup): The one that left us scratching our heads. A sketchy, Alpine tale of a sexy widow and... well, we're still not sure.
• "Warmth of the Hunt" (E.M. Carroll): An absolute banger to finish the anthology. A stunning, timeless depiction of the Wild Hunt with tattoo-worthy art.

Which stories gave us "oozing dread" and which one was less fright and more...?

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Next Comic:

Local Man, a deconstruction of the Big Guns and Pouch era of 90's comics by Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs

Time Stamps:

00:00  Introduction to 'Come Find Me'

01:33  Overview of DSTLRY Comics

04:01  Exploring the Anthology's Themes

04:53  Spotlight on Becky Cloonan

09:03  Diving into 'Devil's Trill'

21:32  Analysis of 'Portorium'

32:04  Molly Mendoza's 'Down by the Water'

36:20  Unraveling the Mystery of the Drowned Lover

38:33  The Grim Trysts and Henry's Dark Secrets

39:54  The Frog Spawn Mystery and Henry's Duality

44:17  Medieval Horror and the Tale of Coal & Clover

44:37  The Dark Art of Vanessa Del Ray

48:57  The Folkloric Influence in Horror Comics

01:04:17  The Wild Hunt and the Art of EM Carroll

01:10:32  Final Thoughts and Upcoming Reads

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