Comic Review: Afraid of Everything (IDW Publishing)

A storybook for eight-year-olds, and it’s all about ‘fear’! It’s Afraid of Everything, from IDW.

Adam Tierney writes this Alphabetical Compendium of People’s Weirdest Fears, and sure enough, Tierney starts the book with ‘A’: Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders.

Each letter of the alphabet corresponds to a different fear, so there are 26 fears described, for those of us who are counting. But the fears are more than just ‘described’ in Afraid of Everything: Tierney has composed a short story or poem for each fear, and these are entrancing.

Take Uranophobia, for example, the fear of Heaven. Liam, our character, seems to have ended up there. And for a while, everything is hunky-dory, and Liam gets everything he wants from his gang of angels. Until he has a sudden realization. Heaven’s not what he imagined!!

Each one-page story is matched with a facing-page, illustrated by game designer and illustrator Matthieu Cousin. There’s a story character illustration and a background ‘wallpaper’ pattern to match.

The stories are creepy, funny, and imaginative. They take colourful twists and turns and include plenty of good and gross things. Perfect for the young reader.

In addition, there are 11 “extra fears”, each illustrated by a different guest artist, plus a behind the scenes look at the Kickstarter materials that began the whole shebang.

IDW, Afraid of Everything, $19.99 for 100 pages, all ages (from “ages 8 – 95”)