Be Not Afraid

by Jude Ellison S. Doyle, Lisandro Estherren (Illustrator)

What if your greatest blessing became a curse you couldn’t escape?

From acclaimed horror writer Jude Ellison S. Doyle and artist Lisandro Estherren comes a Southern Gothic descent into religious dread, generational shame, and cosmic terror.

Cora Reims once embraced a vision of pure light—an angelic messenger who left behind a terrible her son, Jordy. Despite his angelic countenance, it soon becomes apparent that Jordy is a plague upon the Earth, spreading death and cruelty wherever he goes. After years of torment and generational shame for her transgression, Cora receives a divine revelation on the eve of Jordy’s eighteenth God has finally heard her pleas and Heaven demands the destruction of her devastatingly powerful child.

As plagues descend on the town of Enoch and the townspeople's faith fractures under fear, Cora must now confront her past, her purpose, and the divine horror she once mistook for grace with the guidance of a mysterious, new stranger.

Collects Be Not Afraid #1–6.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

160 pages, Paperback

Expected publication July 7, 2026

About the author

Jude Ellison S. Doyle is an author, journalist, and comic book writer living in upstate New York.

Under his former pen name “Sady Doyle,” Jude founded the feminist blog Tiger Beatdown in 2008. He is the author of "Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why" (Melville House 2016), which has been called "smart, funny and fearless" (Boston Globe), "compelling" and "persuasive" (New York Times Book Review). The Atlantic predicted that "Trainwreck will very likely join the feminist canon." Doyle’s second book, "Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy and the Fear of Female Power" (Melville House, 2019) was named a Best Non-Fiction Book of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews and was shortlisted for Starburst Magazine’s Brave New Words award. His first non-fiction book under his real name, "DILF: Did I Leave Feminism," will be published by Melville House in the fall of 2025.

In 2021, Jude published "Maw," a limited-series horror comic with artist A.L. Kaplan, for Boom! Studios. His follow-up, "The Neighbors" with artist Letizia Cadonici, was published in 2023, and was nominated for a 2024 GLAAD award for “Outstanding Comic.” Both are now available in collected edition, and Jude’s third series, "Be Not Afraid" with artist Lisandro Estherren, is forthcoming from Boom! Studios.

Reviews

[Alicia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story starts with a pregnant woman, essentially skipping birth, and creepy fully-clothed-Chucky-looking toddler just pops out. As he grows up we learn he’s cruel, lacks empathy, and has powers (like bringing his dead grandmas corpse to life for a bday party🎈 ) that he uses for his grim entertainment. We discover his mother had sex with an angel to create this devilish spawn. The mother, unsure if she can make it right, leaves the town of Enoch in a spiritual predicament 😳.

From the beginning I realized the artwork, although very talented, didn’t fully work for me. The imagery is so dark that there were times I misread the order of the panels because the boundaries of the boxes aren’t always super clear.

This story wasn’t quite what I expected. I do love demon and satanic themes and I even enjoy stories with angels being demons and Christianity turned sour, but something about this just wasn’t for me.

[Ya Boi Be Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you so much Netgalley for the ARC! I do wish you didn't lower the resolution of the artwork though. It's a pet peeve of mine when publishers do that with ARCs. How am I supposed to judge the book if you aren't giving me a proper copy? At least it isn't watermarked to hell like other ARCs can be. I’ve read one other previous Jude Ellison work in The Neighbors and after reading this one I just don’t think Jude Ellison is for me. I'll admit I can't parse out all this so trying to say. I mostly got out of it religious guilt, the religious struggle of following a higher beings order when it doesn't make human sense, and the struggle to come to terms with a god that allows suffering. So religious ruminating I guess.
The art on this is spectacular with a wonderful messy pencil, or colored pencil, and charcoal-y look. It really sells the atmosphere, dreariness, and how everything is just gone to shit. The coloring is really strong as well. But the story I’m just stuck and lost on with the dynamic of the Mom and the son really not working for me. I think their dynamic is ok but it’s a main portion and it just wasn’t enough for how long it is stuck on the page. I can see someone really digging this though. The atmosphere is impeccable and it’s clearly got something to say and is still a fine read even if it’s lost on me. I do really enjoy the ending. I think it's strong to have her forsake the religion and have some karmic punishment since a big focus is the disconnect between what a God wants us to and what human thinking would want and the consequences especially with a more Old Testament harsher God.

[Mox Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be Not Afraid is a beautifully poetic, religion-centered story that dives deep into humanity, human nature, and what happens when faith is tested by temptation and despair. Jude Ellison S. Doyle crafts a narrative that feels both intimate and unsettling, asking hard questions about belief, fear, and what it truly means to be human when faced with the divine.

Doyle’s other works have been sitting on my TBR for a long time, so receiving this ARC through NetGalley, especially while already owning many of the single issues, felt like the perfect excuse to finally immerse myself in this story. The collected format made it an easy, compelling read, but “easy” doesn’t mean light; this is a story that lingers, emotionally and thematically.

What initially drew me in were the biblically accurate angel depictions on the covers, which are striking, eerie, and impossible to ignore. Lisandro Estherren’s artwork is a perfect match for the tone of the story, capturing the intensity, vulnerability, and shifting moods throughout the narrative with incredible precision. The visuals amplify the sense of awe and dread, making the angels feel truly otherworldly rather than comforting.

Together, the writing and art create an experience that is haunting, thoughtful, and deeply affecting, one that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early review copy.

This was disappointing. The story was very one-note, with  no subtlety.  I feel like this is what we would get if we asked Nelson from The Simpsons to tell a campfire horror story.  It's all eevil eeeevil eeeeeevilllll.  No room for doubt, no nuance, just "heh heh heh look at this evil kid!  Sucks to be his mom!" (to be clear: this is NOT an actual quote from the book.)

The only parts that were interesting was when it tried to turn around on itself and question whether we were dealing with a kind god or an evil god or a pretender god.  I would have liked more of THAT and less of blood-spattered Jordy.  The best part is when Cora snarls: "I was a child when a being older than the world raped me!"  That's it, that's her one moment of glory.  The rest of the collection is Cora moping in a corner while Jordy torments his latest target.   Endless torment is boring. 

The main story artist (Lisandro Estherren) is not the same as the cover artist (Reiko Murakami), which always feels like a bait and switch to me, which is not totally fair of me, but one of the factors I use in choosing a comic is the artwork, and often the only art you can see is the cover art until  you start reading.   Estherren's art is muddy, warped, and confusing, and I often did not know exactly what was happening, or who was speaking.  The lettering (Simon Bowland) was also a little hard to read in spots.

[Ines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be Not Afraid is a masterclass in slow-burn horror. From the first panels, it creeps under your skin. Not with gore, but with a pervasive sense of decay, spiritual unease, and mental instability. Jude Ellison S. Doyle’s story, complemented by Lisandro Estherren’s phenomenal artwork, feels like Southern Gothic brought vividly to life: isolated settings, morally complicated characters, and a haunting critique of religious fanaticism.

I didn’t grasp every plot detail on the first read, but the story doesn’t feel incomplete; it trusts the reader to sit with the unease and let the dread build. Estherren’s visuals are the perfect match for this tone: dark, unsettling, and beautiful in their grotesqueness, making even quiet moments feel ominous.

This comic isn’t about jump scares or shocking violence; it’s about the lingering discomfort that stays with you long after the page is turned. Be Not Afraid is a chilling, thoughtful exploration of faith, obsession, and the shadows that live within communities and minds alike.

[Alex Sarll]

The Estherren art was the big draw for me here, and fits the story perfectly, making every page look like American Gothic as reworked by a German Expressionist. But the story lives up to it. Initially it feels like no more than an echo of It's A Good Life, a small town terrorised by a boy with unthinkable powers and nothing to constrain him. And as a rule, the more you explain a monster's origin, the less scary it becomes. But if that child is like that because his father was an angel? Well, then you've opened the door to the most horrific thing of all – theology, what it suggests about the world, and what that lets humans do to each other while convinced they're serving virtue.
"I didn't get the abortion. My mother begged me to, but I didn't. Because of God. How could it be wrong to kill my child then, and right to kill him now?"
"Cora, God has killed every human being he's ever made. Including his own son. God has killed species and civilizations and planets. God will kill you. God will kill every distant star. It isn't killing God minds. It's choosing."

(Netgalley ARC)

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of advance copy received from Netgalley

The visuals for this graphic novel were stunning and I loved the story, it blended apocalyptic horror with introspective horror seamlessly. It was one of those horrors that you could view from multiple angles and I liked that, the religious angle was the obvious one but then there was also the social one - Cora Reims was not the seducer but the victim and yet was made to suffer because of someone else’s sin and then there was Jordy, born with inherent power for evil and unable to partake in anything else because of the perceived “sin” of his existence. Maybe the true sin was the idea that a woman should carry her abuser’s child and care for it against her will because an unseen entity demands she bare someone else’s sin simply because of someone else’s free will, something that the angel figure in the novel claims not to have.

Content
• Overt religious imagery and themes
• Damian/Anti-Christ Figure
• Apocalypse
• Perception V Truth

[JD · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advanced copy to review, courtesy of NetGalley.

This one had caught my eye as the single issues were released, but I wanted to wait until the whole story could be read in one sitting, and boy oh boy, this did not disappoint.

Although we've seen this plot in horror before with the birth of the anti-christ and subsequent fallout of society, this story takes a different approach by including themes from certain philosophical sectors to create a more heart-pounding tale in the overall discourse. It latches onto what we don't know and amps up the terror.

The visuals were stunning, and said more at times than the text on the page. It captured the dread in the atmosphere. How bleak and depressing the entire scene was. Devoid of hope and faith.

Another great addition from BOOM! Studios, and many thanks to the creators who made this possible.

[Shiritaku · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ooookay… so ganz hab ich den leider nicht verstanden 🫣 also ja, es geht darum, dass eine sehr gläubige Frau einen Sohn gebärt, dessen Vater ein Engel ist. Und der Sohn - Jordy - ist alles andere als ein Engel - denn alles und jeden, was er berührt, stirbt auf grausame Weise.. an sich ist das thematisch eigentlich ganz interessant, aber die Umsetzung find ich sehr schwierig zu verstehen. Grafisch war's auch etwas gewöhnungsbedürftig, aber sehr detailliert und die Bilder sind auch für sich sprechend und aussagekräftig. Aber der Sinn? Mmmh, ist mir nicht ganz ersichtlich 😬 tatsächlich blieb mir auch nicht allzuviel davon in Erinnerung, was dann auch wieder sehr für sich spricht.. 😅 vielleicht liegt's auch mal wieder an der sprachlichen Barriere bei so einem Thema, aber für mich war das leider nichts 🥲

[Emmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an eArc of this in return for an honest review.

The story follows Cora who gives birth to something unholy after being visited by an angel. What follows is monstrous and filled with grief.

For me the ending was the strongest part of the whole story; Cora’s question on God and thoughts of the angle that visited her when she was younger. It leaves the story on a powerful note. But, what didn’t hit for me was overall the story never had rising tension, it was at the constant point of horrifying. This didn’t really keep my engaged or scare me, all it did was disturb me…

The art style I think really adds to the story, heightens the creepiness of it all. Sometimes the speech bubbles were hard to read, at first it could be unclear who was speaking.

Overall decent!

[Amelia Suedel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and Boom studios for a digital arc of this graphic novel in exchange for my review!

I was really drawn in by the cover art of this graphic novel, but I was not as interested in the art style throughout. It was a lot of blurry gore and shadowed evils lurking. I felt like I was missing something throughout this graphic novel, there was a lot of quoting of the bible and other big and ambiguous statements about the world, good, and evil. Maybe there was intended to be some deeper meaning I wasn't understanding. It was pretty classic horror but I felt like so much more could have been explored with the premise.

[Stephen Reyes-Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting! I like the concept a lot. Religious horror is usually a win for me. I think it started to get a little muddled after the first few issues and I got a little lost, but I did enjoy it. One thing I didn't really enjoy was the art. I'm pretty sure it was in colored pencil, so it looked very rough and muddy to me. There were parts of it that I liked. The angels were well done. Not my cup of tea overall, though. All in all, fun Omen type story, but a little hard to follow. Still enjoyed it and it's definitely worth a read.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐️ thank you to Netgalley for the ARC. This is a truly gorgeous and thoroughly creepy Southern Gothic story centered on organized religion. The art is really atmospheric, completely blew me away. While I think the storyline and messaging were a bit heavy-handed, I do think it’s an interesting meditation on faith that’s really haunting and will certainly stick with me for a long time. I can definitely see myself rereading this multiple times, especially when the trade finally comes out.

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recieved a copy of this ARC thanks to NetGalley and BOOM! Studios. I am leaving an honest and voluntary review.

This story was a dark look at Christianity and religion as a whole. It was a building horror that certainly left readers with questions of the end, and the main characters raised many questions and concerns about Christianity and God that I've had before, which I thought was interesting. Some parts left me with questions, but it was an overall enjoyable read.

[Haruka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read!!! A rare storyline. I quite enjoyed it!! I feel bad for what happened to Jordy and what Cora have to do. He evil but parts of me feel sorry for him. The ending was great!! It a great read for horror and biblical combined. Loves the artstyle!!
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Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in advance~

[M as in meow meow MF · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read up to issue 4, really good and creepy and sad and so much more. Pulls one in straight away.

[doowopapocalypse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just an absolute joy. The Night of the Hunter meets Midnight Mass story, the very physical feeling art...rewarding stuff.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. This was a decent and dark read with art to match.