Wolf Moon

Wolf Moon

by Cullen Bunn (Writer), Jeremy Haun (Illustrator)

A new brand of Werewolf carves a bloody rampage into this collection of WOLF MOON!

How do you hunt a werewolf if a different person becomes the monster with every cycle of the moon? Dillon, a former victim of the Wolf's transformation, is taking it upon himself to track the sporatic movements of the Wolf in hopes to kill it. Hoping to uncover some clues, Dillon turns to a reclusive expert on werewolf legends, and what he learns crushes any hope of ever destroying the creature.

Collects WOLF MOON #1-6.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Horror, Fantasy, Werewolves, Comic Book, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2015

About the author

Cullen grew up in rural North Carolina, but now lives in the St. Louis area with his wife Cindy and his son Jackson. His noir/horror comic (and first collaboration with Brian Hurtt), The Damned, was published in 2007 by Oni Press. The follow-up, The Damned: Prodigal Sons, was released in 2008. In addition to The Sixth Gun, his current projects include Crooked Hills, a middle reader horror prose series from Evileye Books; The Tooth, an original graphic novel from Oni Press; and various work for Marvel and DC. Somewhere along the way, Cullen founded Undaunted Press and edited the critically acclaimed small press horror magazine, Whispers from the Shattered Forum.

All writers must pay their dues, and Cullen has worked various odd jobs, including Alien Autopsy Specialist, Rodeo Clown, Professional Wrestler Manager, and Sasquatch Wrangler.

And, yes, he has fought for his life against mountain lions and he did perform on stage as the World's Youngest Hypnotist. Buy him a drink sometime, and he'll tell you all about it.

Visit his website at www.cullenbunn.com.

Reviews

[Jan Philipzig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uninspired, generic, boring werewolf horror - hard to believe this shelf warmer was cooked up by the same Cullen Bunn who is currently writing the wonderfully twisted Harrow County. 1.5 stars, I'd say. Not much, I know.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not saying I’m an expert on werewolf stories but the most basic template I’d come up with from everything werewolf-related that I’ve seen - from comics, books, TV, and movies - is someone or a group of people hunting the werewolf who’s terrorising a town. That’s Wolf Moon, the very definition of a generic werewolf story. The human turns into a wolf during a full moon, they can only be taken down by silver bullets, all the old staples are here.

I’m really stunned that Cullen Bunn - a writer who has come up with great comics in the past like The Sixth Gun, which is very original - would not only write something so bafflingly bland but that a mainstream publisher like Vertigo would publish it! There’s really nothing else to say about this comic, it’s everything you’d expect from a werewolf story without any twists or new takes on the concept.

The art team of Jeremy Haun and Lee Loughridge do some fine work bringing Bunn’s yawn-worthy tale to life, and it’s a very violent story so there’s a lot of graphic imagery throughout. The art team are the only ones trying even if Haun is just replicating werewolf designs that’ve gone before.

Want to read an unoriginal, unimaginative, creatively-lacking, and instantly forgettable werewolf comic? Check out Wolf Moon!

[Cathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story was very generic, run of the mill werewolf lore, adding nothing to the genre.

The larger, full-sized pages have nice artwork. The actual artwork of the story is ok, but not great. Anatomically so-so and I wasn‘t always sure what I was supposed to see. A bit sloppy and indistinct at times.

The underlined words in the text bubbles irritated me quite a bit.

I started skimming a third into the story. Not recommended, unless you are a fan of B-movie-level horror-trash. Which is ok and can be fun, but in this case it was not my cup of tea.

[Jedi JC Daquis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a recommended book if you are looking for a horror-thriller story. Read Scott Snyder's Wytches or invest on Robert Kirkman's (also author of The Walking Dead) Outcast series. Wolf Moon is disappointing, generic and an uninspired creation of Cullen Bunn, which is severely mismatched by the superior art by Jeremy Haun. It is the art that kept me from giving this a one-star rating.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the most visceral and brutal werewolf stories I've ever read. If you have any issues with gore and violence, turn away now - there were panels that actively bothered me, and I've usually got a stomach for it. The artist does a good job of capturing the casual brutality without shrinking from the destruction. So be warned.
The story is pretty good, using a skinwalker as a werewolf so the curse can pass between individuals but only be limited to one creature at a time. It also spends much of its time focusing on the survivors and their various issues (guilt, PTSD, obsession), as a trio tries to stop the creature.
There are a couple intense sequences - a shootout in a mall and outside a fast food restaurant, that convey the sheer ferocity and power of the creature better than I think I've ever seen. The story ends with some resolution (and the obligatory setup for future stories), making it a good enough one and done. It's not Cullen Bunn's best horror, but it's in the upper half of what I've read of him.

[Michael J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like a 3.5 star read, this gets the extra half-point for effort. Cullen Bunn makes a few changes to werewolf mythology in order to make this tale stand out, but in the end doesn't explore it enough and reverts to standard werewolf story-telling tropes. What saves it and also helps maintain the rating is the amazing art by Jeremy Haun and colors by Lee Loughridge. Be forewarned that this is very bloody and graphic with several scenes of the huge werewolf dismembering victims.

The twists in werewolf lore that Bunn introduces (and the missed opportunities) are:

1) The werewolf is more like a skin walker, inhabiting a human for one full moon and then changing its host a month later during the next full moon. The former hosts are naturally altered forever, having experienced the savage werewolf killing frenzy from the inside and unable to halt it. Families are disrupted, some sink into deep depression, promising careers are ended, and suicides occur. Many, like the main character, make it their business to try and hunt down the werewolf and kill it. Bunn does explore the results on the human mindset, but those scenes are too brief and fall flat.

2) The other avenue introduced but not properly explored is that many who lost family members to the werewolf blame the surviving hosts and then hunt them down, incorrectly hoping that by killing a former host the threat is ended. I can't recall any scenes related to this, just it gets mentioned in a few conversations and then discarded.

Six issues was certainly enough to further explore those themes, but Bunn and company seem to take the easy route with numerous scenes of werewolf carnage, the standard bloodbath we come to expect when reading werewolf stories. Maybe a print novel would have provided Bunn the proper room to stretch and fully develop this story.

[Μιχάλης · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great take on the werewolf myth. The lycanthrope is switching bodies and former hosts hunt the beast. Great horror gn

[Alex Sarll]

Yet another Cullen Bunn horror comic, this time from the last days of Vertigo. It's a werewolf story with a twist, namely, each full moon the curse jumps to a different host - but our hero, a former host, is trying to kill it and whoever is hosting it as the only way to end it. How does he know that'll work? We're never told, it's just a way to set up a mild moral dilemma and have him bottle out of an easy shot early on. Other former hosts are more ruthless, or else want the bestial rush back. Haun draws good werewolf, which is handy, though the action scenes can be confusing, and one scene pulls that infuriating trick the Lunas used in The Sword, where there's a late reveal that one character is in a wheelchair, but it's a cheat because the angles in the previous panels don't actually add up. The sort of thing where I'm glad I put a review for everything on Goodreads now, because otherwise I might entirely forget what it was except that it mildly annoyed me.

[Brian Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror fans should read this book. Werewolf fans should read this book.

In my opinion the writer did a solid job capturing a grand story in the half a dozen issues of a comic book. What readers get is a compact version of a compelling and grandiose story, which is difficult to pull off in any comic, let alone one featuring werewolves. If this were a book or film, it would be so much better...and I believe that's what many readers get hung up on. Some readers complain this book is generic, others simplistic. I would disagree. To me, Wolf Moon is seeded in the author's nostalgia and passion for the genre...and it shows on the page. Mr. Bunn lays the foundation with the story and the artist and colorist do a phenomenal job walking the line between over the top and believable with their visual interpretations.

To be clear, this isn't your typical werewolf story. The wolf is never the same person twice. It jumps from person to person like a cold or sickness. Once a month, with the full moon, the wolf is unleashed and wreaks havoc on its host's family and/or town. After the wolf moves on, the previous host is left with vivid memories of what the wolf did while it was in control of them. Some of the previous hosts go insane, others seek vengeance, and others seek a way to reconnect with the power of the wolf.

My only complaints are the book felt rushed and the ending just sort of happened. Had the book been longer, the ending would have had more weight and felt more poignant. Despite the few flaws, this book is still a solid read, especially if you're a fan of horror...like me.

[Scott Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a big horror guy, so it's possible that someone who was would rate it higher.

Bunn does a short-series length riff on werewolf mythology here. He links several shapeshifters under the concept that the werewolf in question is a spiritual entity that possesses a given host for the period of the new moon. Jumping from person to person so that it might appear anywhere next month if it gets away.

Gory as one would expect from a Vertigo book with a truly murderous villain, and fairly dark in its choices of characters and protagonists, Cullen does just enough to differentiate his wolf from the standard mythology. I saw a lot of reviews that said this was a simple re-hash of the Werewolf of folklore, and to an extent they've got a point, but you don't have to change everything about a concept to make it new, or your own. I felt, at the concept level, like Bunn's single twist on the werewolf myth was enough to set it apart form other such stories I'd read.

It wasn't great, but then horror is rarely my thing. Pretty sure I picked this one up after loving a volume of Six-Gun, which, as a weird-western, really is right up my alley.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though Bunn says he is trying to do something different with this werewolf story, it felt uninspired. Most of the story is visceral kill after kill while the subplots like that this is actually a skinwalker that jumps from person to person each month is underdeveloped. Someone else is also going around killing past hosts of the werewolf, that is also underdeveloped. Where the book shines is the very graphic art of Jeremy Haun and Lee Loughridge. This book may actually make you squeamish in places with all the dismemberments. Another underdeveloped piece of this is how it's being kept quiet. At one point the werewolf kills dozens of people in the middle of a St. Louis mall and yet no one has video footage of a werewolf murdering everybody. Bunn Has done some terrific stuff like The Sixth Gun and Harrow County, but he has also done a lot of uninspired horror and this falls in the latter camp.

[RedDagger · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is driven by its concept - a werewolf curse that's transferred spiritually by looking at people, that only surfaces in the 3 days around the full moon. It establishes all the expected consequences; survivors, werewolf hunters, werewolf chasers, but never really explores it beyond standard werewolf tropes. The execution in general is rather...standard. Personally wasn't a fan of how contrived the action was; this opts for making our hunters hilariously inept at going bang bang to make the werewolf last for more than one encounter with the spray of silver bullets.

[Andrei · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather typical werewolf story, with a slight deviation from the usual mythos to keep things interesting - the "infection" passes off from one person to another rather than relying on the traditional bite. This opens up some interesting possibilities to explore the feelings of former "hosts", which was one of the more interesting aspects of the book for me. The werewolf is quite menacing in looks and manages to get the drop on his victims quite easily. This along with the very gory art manage to give you an uneasy feeling, which for a horror book is a good thing. Not overly original, and the final pages left me a bit unsatisfied, but overall an ok read.

[Melissa Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay graphic novel. The artwork was pretty good for most part. There were a few frames that I couldn't figure out what was going on. The story line was so-so. I started out not liking where they were going with the how a human becomes a werewolf thing but after more explaining, I got a bit more comfortable. I still felt it a little "out there". Although it wasn't a bad book, I doubt I'll continue with the series.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know a lot of reviews have been saying that this is a very genetic werewolf story, but I still found myself enjoying it. I liked the art style, and the story, while standard, interested me. I don't think this is a part of a series, but I would continue it if there were more.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the skinwalker of Native American legend, the Wolf moves from person to person so where it appears next is uncertain. Dillon hunts it for what it did to him in the past. A violent, intense twist on the werewolf genre.

[Joseph Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Concept is alright, but the ending feels rushed. Each wolf's emotions felt someone similar, not expressed in too much depth, but perhaps it's the reliance on our main hunter's narrative that makes it so stolid.

[Nicollette Winiewicz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new twist of a classic tale of lycanthropy, and gory as all werewolf stories are.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gotta admit I'm a sucker for werewolves and this title does a few different things but the ending was a puzzler and I won't spoil it.

[Charles Tilley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting twist to the werewolf lore. I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would.

[Bear of MoonBear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Straight forward, traditional, werewolf gore.

[Philip Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A generic werewolf story which is enjoyable but not one of the best out there. Artwork style was okay but doesnt fully capture the horror elements.

[Rickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty fun twist on the traditional werewolf mythos. Little unbelievable that with the number of bodies, there aren't more people that know about the werewolf. That's about only complaint I have.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neat twist on the werewolf trope.

[Rhys Causon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent art, generic action comic.

Though a slightly interesting take on a werewolf curse… not sure if incorporating some sort of Skinwalker lore into it was a good idea though.

[Labeeb Xaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be just another werewolf comic book, which is OK, but I wanted something different. Cullen Bunn isn't my favorite writer but though his story telling in this book is not that deep and is mostly simple, I enjoyed reading this book, especially the second and the third issue. This book was different from the other werewolf comic books in a way that other than the wolf story, there was another mystery going on in the story as well. However the ending wasn't very satisfactory for me as it seemed either incomplete or unexplained and the last page wasn't very pleasing for me either.

[Livingdeadpunk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great concept, but the execution suffers a bit in comparison to other horror comics like Wytches or 30 Days of Night. Still fairly enjoyable though. I'd read more.

[Silence · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a fairly novel twist on a werewolf lore, but it wasn't a deep enough dive into the plot to really grip me.

[Monirul Haque · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring horror comic. The story is not even thrilling. 3 stars because of the beautiful gore art and the starting story of the comic.

[beau · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10
Pretty cool if u ask me