Image Comics brings you a horror graphic novel from your children’s nightmare about a monster in the closet which is The Closet in the first volume.

So whatever happens if you watched the Chuckee movie with your pants smelling of urine and find out that the doll has only the mouth to devour mortals then here’s this comic that is well pretty much made up of children. I never thought I get into something like this, but I’m reading a horror story that reflects your children’s nightmares. The story is written by James Tynion IV and illustrated by Gavin Fullerton, James is an American comic book writer who is best known for writing the Batman franchise at DC Comics, not only that but he wrote a lot of spooky stories such as Department of Truth on Image and Something is Killing the Children on BOOM! Studios. And Gavin is an Irish storyboard and comic book artist/illustrator, his first graphic novel is Bags which is based on the short story Over the Garden Wall by Patrick McHale. But he’s also the artist of Bog Bodies with writer Declan Shalvey on Image Comics.

The front cover shows an image of a child’s room playing with a bat plushie thing while the whole background is surrounded by a dark warm color. I mean it’s terrifying and all, but why does this have to do with the story which is the closet? The door is covered with some holes with some stars and moons. At least I could call this creepy as a matter of fact.

The story starts in a bar when the father and the bartender started discussing his child having nightmares of a monster in the closet. Then he would have believed that it was pointless to make a fuss. But then the bartender started to talk about the unicorn piss, meaning that it’s unicorn magic to make things go away from the smell of unicorn urine, which is what I believe. But this is all make-believe just to give this guy a rest from all that trouble from moving to their new apartment. And then when the child is going to sleep, she gets some awful vibes as if someone is coming to her bedroom. The image of that monster looks like Griffith, which is the skinnier version wearing a helmet, but it’s just another slender man.

However, all of that caused on the child’s head is a monster in the closet, which makes the father more difficult to understand the situation. The problem is that his family is a horrible piece of shit because he believes that he wanted to be a kid again. Instead of solving his own problems by getting better for himself, he chose to ignore everything around him. He doesn’t contact his friend anymore and this getting all to his head, and ultimately ignoring his responsibility as a father.

The story is quite disturbing from the fact that the child is scared of that monster in the closet, or the fact that the child heard that their parents are fighting each other. I don’t know where to begin, but all is in the father’s head that long because he’s ignoring his own responsibilities for the family and as a father. No matter how related it is, this is more of a fiction story because the artist illustrated the monster who looked like the miniature version of a slender man, it gets so spooky for the readers to read. The art is just too realistic but the fact that bothered me is how he designed the slenderman-like monster in the story. I just thought that Guts has so many problems with the Apostles and something is creeping into his nightmares. While this comic the child is seeing the monster as if it’s real or not. And at the end of the second chapter, we get to see this image of the monster dragging the kid back to bed, and in the next chapter, the kid is still alive and afraid, because how does this make sense to the readers if that monster is a threat to the child? How is this really fucked up?? If this is actually a horror story, then why do the child’s parents don’t see it with their own eyes??

By Kevin Bermeo

I'm a New Yorker Artist, and I traveled a lot. I enjoy making comics, illustrations, paintings, and digital art. Besides drawing, I'm also a writer, I used to be a Gamer, and I love adventures, food, and dragons.