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Cradlegrave
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE!
After serving eight months at a Young
Offenders Institution for arson, Shane Holt returns to his home on the Ravenglade
Estate during a long, hot summer. Plagued by the ASBO generation, the estate has seen
its fair share of problems but nothing comes close to the horror that lurks within Ted and
Mary’s council home...
From the extraordinary mind of John Smith
(Devlin Waugh, Indigo Prime) with art by Edmund Bagwell (Tharg’s Future Shocks),
this contemporary urban horror is guaranteed to deliver the chills!
96 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2011
48 people want to read
About the author
John Smith
74 books2 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
John Smith (1967- ) is a British comics writer best known for his work on 2000 AD and Crisis. He has a host of creative credits to his name, including A Love Like Blood, Devlin Waugh, Firekind, Holocaust 12, Indigo Prime, Pussyfoot 5, Revere, Slaughterbowl, Tyranny Rex, Leatherjack, Dead Eyes and Cradlegrave. Smith has also written Future Shocks, Judge Dredd, Judge Karyn, Pulp Sci-Fi, Robo-Hunter, Rogue Trooper, Tales from Beyond Science, Vector 13 and Tales from the Black Museum. Smith's work beyond the Galaxy's Greatest Comic includes the long-running New Statesmen series in Crisis, DC/Vertigo's Hellblazer and Scarab, and Harris Comics' Vampirella.
John Smith (1967- ) is a British comics writer best known for his work on 2000 AD and Crisis. He has a host of creative credits to his name, including A Love Like Blood, Devlin Waugh, Firekind, Holocaust 12, Indigo Prime, Pussyfoot 5, Revere, Slaughterbowl, Tyranny Rex, Leatherjack, Dead Eyes and Cradlegrave. Smith has also written Future Shocks, Judge Dredd, Judge Karyn, Pulp Sci-Fi, Robo-Hunter, Rogue Trooper, Tales from Beyond Science, Vector 13 and Tales from the Black Museum. Smith's work beyond the Galaxy's Greatest Comic includes the long-running New Statesmen series in Crisis, DC/Vertigo's Hellblazer and Scarab, and Harris Comics' Vampirella.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
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October 5, 2011Glad to see a collected edition for perhaps the queasiest story 2000AD ever published.
December 30, 2022
This effective horror story is undermined a little by broken pacing, with an overly slow buildup, an antagonist introduced about 75% of the way in, and an inconclusive climax that feels rushed.
It's a shame because this tale of (sub?)urban horror has a well observed setting and characters, a creeping, atmospheric terror, and some great imagery, both mundane and horrific, from Edmund Bagwell.
It is very good, Lovecraftian by way of Ramsay Campbell (who provides the foreword), and Smith resists both explaining everything and casting the hoodies as villains, which is not something I imagine Lovecraft himself could have avoided.
It's just a shame that the pacing is so wonky, as this is otherwise a classic modern horror tale.
It's a shame because this tale of (sub?)urban horror has a well observed setting and characters, a creeping, atmospheric terror, and some great imagery, both mundane and horrific, from Edmund Bagwell.
It is very good, Lovecraftian by way of Ramsay Campbell (who provides the foreword), and Smith resists both explaining everything and casting the hoodies as villains, which is not something I imagine Lovecraft himself could have avoided.
It's just a shame that the pacing is so wonky, as this is otherwise a classic modern horror tale.
October 5, 2023
Cradlegrave feels like the antidote to sickness I didn't know I had. Most 00's horror from the UK revolved around fears of the youth especially hoody-wearing NEDS and most of it either paints all working-class young people as monsters or glorifies that violence for easy profit. This feels far more genuine as it critiques both the council estate residents and the system that put them there. It's a great portrait of broken Britain hurt only by slightly bad art. The background is amazingly rendered to fine detail and the atmosphere is thick but every male character having the same haircut, build and face made this hard to follow personally.
August 23, 2013
The artwork in this is superb, and the atmosphere genuinely creepy.
October 27, 2018
Really creepy atmosphere with great build-up of the story and tension. Very interesting premise, but the ending was too abrupt, left me feeling with a sort of "that's it?" feeling. 3.5
October 26, 2017
Shane comes home to Ravenglade council estate after eight months inside for arson. The estate swelters under the long hot summer and sticks from piles of accumulated rubbish, but there’s something truly rotten festering in one of the houses. While the dead-end kids drink and get wasted, tensions mount, and a terrible accident prompts a fateful encounter. The horror of desperate lives seeking escape through addiction and crime in a deteriorating world meets body horror and psychological terror. Razor-sharp writing and incredible art brings a story of sickening tension and tightening suspense and mounting dread to life. Surely one of the most horrifying stories to ever appear in 2000AD, it’s a minor masterpiece of British horror. It’s the realism social setting that grounds it fully, though.
September 6, 2023
I'm not a fan honestly. The most I could say about this book is that it was very disgusting and the art was very good, but the story was lacking. I didn't even notice it was a horror story until about halfway through the book.
The first third of the book is just the characters messing around not doing anything important, then the horror starts and very abruptly stops, and we sort of ignore it until the last couple of pages. The plot was really unfocused and never felt like we're getting somewhere. It's a shame, because there's a great story about living in poverty beneath the somewhat generic horror story.
The first third of the book is just the characters messing around not doing anything important, then the horror starts and very abruptly stops, and we sort of ignore it until the last couple of pages. The plot was really unfocused and never felt like we're getting somewhere. It's a shame, because there's a great story about living in poverty beneath the somewhat generic horror story.
April 3, 2025
Cradlegrave - 3.5/5
One of the most effective one-off stories in 2000AD, with a really great atmosphere that really lets you feel that humid British summer time and hothouse horror of all the body horror grossness that slowly creeps into the Cradlegrave Estate. I do think Smith maybe overdoes the accents a little to where it feels like parody, but I also know folk who speak like this so what do I know, and the ending is a little rushed and a letdown. Still, it really is one of the best one-off stories in 2000AD and really sets the tone for the golden age the magazine kind of reentered in the 2000s and is still sort of in to this day.
One of the most effective one-off stories in 2000AD, with a really great atmosphere that really lets you feel that humid British summer time and hothouse horror of all the body horror grossness that slowly creeps into the Cradlegrave Estate. I do think Smith maybe overdoes the accents a little to where it feels like parody, but I also know folk who speak like this so what do I know, and the ending is a little rushed and a letdown. Still, it really is one of the best one-off stories in 2000AD and really sets the tone for the golden age the magazine kind of reentered in the 2000s and is still sort of in to this day.
February 10, 2017
Wow. I just read the entire thing in one go, more or less, and I'm still a bit...queasy? I don't even have the words for it, really.
The story sounds basic enough: Young bloke Shane comes home after eight months in borstal for arson, and while his intentions seem good in the beginning, he falls back in with the same old troublesome crowd, including his best mate Callum and even his little brother Craig, and they get themselves into a right mess. Elderly neighbour Ted, who's been nursing his ailing wife for some time, is afraid of the kids in their housing development; they've vandalized his house and bullied him on the streets for ages. But when Shane returns to the place known as Cradlegrave, Ted takes some comfort in that; he's always liked Shane, trusts him more than the rest of that lot, and he hopes Shane will be able to help rein in some of the chavs who've been giving him - and thereby his housebound wife, Mary, indirectly - such a fright.
But this is not a normal story. At all. There's something happening at Ted's house, something going on with Mary and her recovery, that cannot possibly be described here - you simply have to read the book and take in the artwork - which ignites the entire neighbourhood of Cradlegrave into insane behaviour. Suddenly Ted and Mary's house seems to become more of a shrine to the local chavs than a target. But why? Again, I say, you've gotta see it for yourself.
My complaints: As unique as the artwork is in this book, I sometimes had a hard time telling the difference between most of the male characters. Shane is meant to be the centrepiece of this story, but occasionally I'd have to go back a few panels to see if I was actually looking at him, or if it was Callum, or Craig, or other local gits like Skully or Tozzer. Because everything is done in such dim and neutral colours, it's sometimes tough to get a grasp of who you're reading right away.
My praise: The atmosphere. My god. Somehow there is a marriage of art and words - really gorgeous, horrifying turns of phrase in the narration, not to mention dead-on dialogue for the Scouse folk who star in the book - that gets under your skin very, very quickly. The wording is so descriptive, and the artwork so true to life, that you can almost smell the rubbish that's out on the streets during their "bin men" strike. There are moments where you get to see inside Shane's head, witness his night terrors, and they are incredibly vivid and unsettling. And then there's...whatever is happening over 'round Ted and Mary's. It's not easy to understand, and it's downright impossible to explain or describe, but ugh, you will feel like you're there. With everything that entails. You can taste it. And it's not pleasant. But it sure as hell is immersive.
There are moments of sheer brilliance in the language of the narration. Quotations that leap off the page and right into your mind's eye. Take these, for example:
"Three days now. Three days since Shane went into hospital and that bastard Skully got out the nick, and he hasn't heard from either of them. Cal'd be worried if he wasn't so wasted. It's a sick, gnawing high like a hacksaw in his head. Everything shivery and shimmery and too bright. Tinfoil in a dirty pond."
"Ted feels brittle and unreal today. Dumbstruck in the kiln of high summer, but cold in his bones. Perhaps he's come down with something. He doesn't want to go home yet but he goes home anyway. Where else was he supposed to go? Home to Mary, stifling in the hothouse gloom like something rare and strange coming into bloom. He never knows what will be waiting for him next."
"It was inside him now. That sickly, randy feeling, skin prickling with sweat. Pressure on his eardrums like being underwater. And the smell growing stronger... Sweet. Fertile. Goat and peardrops. Honey. Wet dog and Dettol and rancid butter."
One of Shane's night terrors: "Fitful dreams lit by firelight. Down, down, down the rusty spiral staircase into a forest of puppets. Operating room doors swing open onto the gutting bays. Clang of anvils. Snuffle of wet razors on leather strops. Babies crying like pigs in the abatoir. Something dying. Something being born. ... Down again. Plummeting fast past floors of wonders and atrocities. Charred mannequins posed in obscene positions. Slick, wet newborns crawling over used syringes and crumpled foil. Flanks quilled with dirty needles, sow udders leaking blood and pus. ... And he's buried alive in the grave of his body. Dark pressing down to stifle his screams. Can't move. Can't breathe. Furnace heat of the crematorium."
Now imagine a wordsmith like John Smith (fitting, that) having extraordinary, evocative pictures (by Edmund Bagwell) to go along with all of the above. You can see why this is nightmare material. It's almost poetry in places, but so dark and twisted that you don't quite realize it until you've closed the book and come up for air.
If you're looking for something totally unlike anything you've read before, something that feels like it could've been the bastard child of "Coronation Street" and "Trainspotting" and David Cronenberg, pick this up. It will screw with your mind. It's a feast for your eyes. Although...perhaps that's a poor choice of words...
The story sounds basic enough: Young bloke Shane comes home after eight months in borstal for arson, and while his intentions seem good in the beginning, he falls back in with the same old troublesome crowd, including his best mate Callum and even his little brother Craig, and they get themselves into a right mess. Elderly neighbour Ted, who's been nursing his ailing wife for some time, is afraid of the kids in their housing development; they've vandalized his house and bullied him on the streets for ages. But when Shane returns to the place known as Cradlegrave, Ted takes some comfort in that; he's always liked Shane, trusts him more than the rest of that lot, and he hopes Shane will be able to help rein in some of the chavs who've been giving him - and thereby his housebound wife, Mary, indirectly - such a fright.
But this is not a normal story. At all. There's something happening at Ted's house, something going on with Mary and her recovery, that cannot possibly be described here - you simply have to read the book and take in the artwork - which ignites the entire neighbourhood of Cradlegrave into insane behaviour. Suddenly Ted and Mary's house seems to become more of a shrine to the local chavs than a target. But why? Again, I say, you've gotta see it for yourself.
My complaints: As unique as the artwork is in this book, I sometimes had a hard time telling the difference between most of the male characters. Shane is meant to be the centrepiece of this story, but occasionally I'd have to go back a few panels to see if I was actually looking at him, or if it was Callum, or Craig, or other local gits like Skully or Tozzer. Because everything is done in such dim and neutral colours, it's sometimes tough to get a grasp of who you're reading right away.
My praise: The atmosphere. My god. Somehow there is a marriage of art and words - really gorgeous, horrifying turns of phrase in the narration, not to mention dead-on dialogue for the Scouse folk who star in the book - that gets under your skin very, very quickly. The wording is so descriptive, and the artwork so true to life, that you can almost smell the rubbish that's out on the streets during their "bin men" strike. There are moments where you get to see inside Shane's head, witness his night terrors, and they are incredibly vivid and unsettling. And then there's...whatever is happening over 'round Ted and Mary's. It's not easy to understand, and it's downright impossible to explain or describe, but ugh, you will feel like you're there. With everything that entails. You can taste it. And it's not pleasant. But it sure as hell is immersive.
There are moments of sheer brilliance in the language of the narration. Quotations that leap off the page and right into your mind's eye. Take these, for example:
"Three days now. Three days since Shane went into hospital and that bastard Skully got out the nick, and he hasn't heard from either of them. Cal'd be worried if he wasn't so wasted. It's a sick, gnawing high like a hacksaw in his head. Everything shivery and shimmery and too bright. Tinfoil in a dirty pond."
"Ted feels brittle and unreal today. Dumbstruck in the kiln of high summer, but cold in his bones. Perhaps he's come down with something. He doesn't want to go home yet but he goes home anyway. Where else was he supposed to go? Home to Mary, stifling in the hothouse gloom like something rare and strange coming into bloom. He never knows what will be waiting for him next."
"It was inside him now. That sickly, randy feeling, skin prickling with sweat. Pressure on his eardrums like being underwater. And the smell growing stronger... Sweet. Fertile. Goat and peardrops. Honey. Wet dog and Dettol and rancid butter."
One of Shane's night terrors: "Fitful dreams lit by firelight. Down, down, down the rusty spiral staircase into a forest of puppets. Operating room doors swing open onto the gutting bays. Clang of anvils. Snuffle of wet razors on leather strops. Babies crying like pigs in the abatoir. Something dying. Something being born. ... Down again. Plummeting fast past floors of wonders and atrocities. Charred mannequins posed in obscene positions. Slick, wet newborns crawling over used syringes and crumpled foil. Flanks quilled with dirty needles, sow udders leaking blood and pus. ... And he's buried alive in the grave of his body. Dark pressing down to stifle his screams. Can't move. Can't breathe. Furnace heat of the crematorium."
Now imagine a wordsmith like John Smith (fitting, that) having extraordinary, evocative pictures (by Edmund Bagwell) to go along with all of the above. You can see why this is nightmare material. It's almost poetry in places, but so dark and twisted that you don't quite realize it until you've closed the book and come up for air.
If you're looking for something totally unlike anything you've read before, something that feels like it could've been the bastard child of "Coronation Street" and "Trainspotting" and David Cronenberg, pick this up. It will screw with your mind. It's a feast for your eyes. Although...perhaps that's a poor choice of words...
August 9, 2021
What a great atmosphere this one had. Really good horror thing.
But the character looked too much like each other. Made the story a bit hard to follow.
But the character looked too much like each other. Made the story a bit hard to follow.
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February 16, 2022best horror movie never made.
November 17, 2025
Disgusting
January 1, 2026
Wasn't good at all. Weird, boring storytelling and the plot twist didn't make sense.
It was short yet unsatisfying.
It was short yet unsatisfying.
September 16, 2016
Lovely and creepy, but overall I found it ended on slightly too upbeat a note. Still, worth reading.
July 11, 2012
Too bad they don't yet have the cover image here on goodreads. I suppose by some of the comments there are sequels to this first in the Cradlegrave series. It ended up being a very noteworthy graphic novella experience. Tells the tale of a lower class English neighborhood, nicknamed Cradlegrave. No future generation type youths become addicted to the "black milk" of a diseased, bedridden old woman who never had children of her own. As she continues to metamorphose into a horrible cthulu-like creature, the lives of the youths and the villagers unravel. Very artfully done, chilling horror tale.
October 8, 2017
It had the makings of a decent wee horror story. But the urban decay, estate living, hoodie, asbo, and chav aspects felt a little forced and out of touch. If there's a sequel then I'd be interested to read it, because this felt half done. The build up to the very unsatisfying "climax" and the sudden ending after that... well...
You can see what the writer tried to do and what he was aiming for. This could make a decent wee sinister horror movie with a bit of rewriting of the ending. But it wasnt much to write home about as a comic.
You can see what the writer tried to do and what he was aiming for. This could make a decent wee sinister horror movie with a bit of rewriting of the ending. But it wasnt much to write home about as a comic.
October 31, 2016
Genuinely unsettling tone and in an authentic feeling voice. Wraps up a bit too quickly but the journey there is good.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews