Reviews

Moon Lake Omnibus by Dan Fogler

readingrainbill's review

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2.0

I got this as an advanced reading copy from Net Galley. The fact that it was given to me free did not affect my review.

Moon Lake is like a weird baby between Twilight Zone and Castle Rock. It takes place at the fictional Moon Lake. Think Camp Crystal Lake, but weirder. This graphic novel is basically a short story collection, but with pictures! Yay for pictures! There are a total of seven stories each with their own author and illustrator and each story has a horror theme. But this isn't a graphic novel for kids. Why, you may ask? Because there are things like nudity, sex, blood, gore, murder, and even bestiality. Yeah, not for kids. So what did I think of this? Here's my review.

This was.... interesting, to say the least. I definitely have a favorite tale and I definitely had some I didn't like as well. Black Bear Blues by Stef Hutchinson Illustrated by Jim Daly and Lizzy John and Moon Wars by Blake Leibel illustrated by John Finney and Kat Rocha stood out as the better of the tales. But some of them, like Camp Sasquatch by Tim Seeley illustrated by Robbie Rodriguez and Mark Englert and Desensitized Deirdre by R. H. Stavis illustrated by Jeffrey Zornow were so overtly grotesque that it left me cold.

The stories revolved around things like a werebear, an orgy gone wrong, a girl who goes on a murderous rampage, and the whole thing is told by a man who lives on the mood, growing fat from eating moon cheese which gives him excess gas.

Some of the tales came across as so tryhard that I felt like it was entirely disingenuous. It felt like the goal of each of those writers was to, first and foremost, do something shocking. I got the feeling that they focused so much on doing something over the top that they failed to write a good story. This graphic novel had more ups and downs than a roller-coaster in an earthquake and I'm sorry to say that the lowest lows out weighed the highest highs.

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. A horror themed graphic novel taking place in a world that allows for wonderfully unique stories to be told sounds like a great idea. Plus Dan Fogler, an actor I quite like, helped put it together and even wrote for it as well, so that's just a bonus! But in the end, Moon River's good stories couldn't keep pace with the bad ones and it left me wanting something better.

Even though I didn't love this, I'm still thankful for NetGalley for allowing me to read this and if you're interested this comes out on

bobbiesdustypages's review

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1.0

I received a e-arc of Moon Lake in exchange for an honest review.

I really don't even know what to say about this comic... It's not that long but I found it really hard to even read it. The dialogue was pretty damn bad, it was really immature but really adult at the same time so it was just so disconnected at kept taking me out of the story. There was some pretty good art some better then others same and the same goes for the actual stories, it was just the writing I was really just not a fan.
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