Razorblades: The Horror Magazine Year One Omnibus Vol. 1

Razorblades - The Horror Magazine #1-5

by Alex Paknadel, Marguerite Bennett, S.A. Foxe

The self-published terror sensation finally arrives in a deluxe hardcover collecting the first year! Co-created by JAMES TYNION IV (DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH, Something is Killing the Children) and STEVE FOXE, THE HORROR MAGAZINE features over 350 pages of horror from some of the most cutting-edge names in the genre. From monsters in the closet to bodies stuffed in washing machines, RAZORBLADES redefines horror comics for the next era. Also includes prose, illustrations, and in-depth interviews with horror icons like SCOTT SNYDER.



Collects THE HORROR MAGAZINE #1-5

Genres: Horror, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Comics

397 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 17, 2022

Reviews

[Devin · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a huge horror fan I was very excited for this book. Unfortunately it was a giant let down. Most of the stories are too short to build tension or have a feel for the characters. Some of the imagery is creepy and well done, but nothing really blew me away. I liked maybe 10% of the stories, and liked is a reach. I don’t see myself ever picking this back up to read any of the stories again. Very disappointed

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went back and forth between rating this 3 stars and 4 stars...and for the sake of consistency for the year I'm rounding up to 4 stars instead of doing 3.5 stars.

There is SO MUCH material in here and my enjoyment of individual pieces was basically the entire star spectrum. A LOT of stuff fell into the middle for me. But...what makes me round this up is some of the artwork is just ..absolutely stunning. Like...made my day when i was feeling not so grear stunning. Some of thr arrwork in here is worth the price of admission all on its own. I will pick this up again in the future even if its just to look at some of the artwork.

But i was quite surprised at some of the long form, text only stories were some of my favorites as well.

A lot wont be memorable. A lot of these stories didnt do anything for me. But there are some real gems mixed throughout that worked really well for me.

[Allyson Koehler · Rating 2 out of 5]

why was this actually so disappointing? the majority of the stories were so short and meaningless and tbh the horror doesn't hit as deep when there's no build up or stakes or anything. would definitely skip

[Chr*s Browning]

Tynion’s stated purpose in the introduction is admirable, an anthology of contemporary indie horror comics creators all making whatever they want, but the end result is more or less what I expected - there’s a few stories with meat on their bones here (the serialized “Cinderside” has some kick to it and Foxe’s dry-run for All Eight Eyes clearly tempted a full series, even if that series ended up being ho hum whatever anyway), but most of these pieces are of the “short and sweet dumb” variety, built on endings either gotcha or deliberately ambiguous, dream logic two-pagers, or frights that would only chill ur average Box Lunch SuperFan - the topicality of a few pieces is also exhausting (pandemic masks! Wayfair child trafficking! (lol)). As with most modern horror anthologies, this is one for the fans and the fans are mostly dumb babies. Still, admirable effort. Maybe next round it goes somewhere.

[Galen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology was pretty cool. I really liked the art in a lot of them which is rare since the quality tends to dip when you have a ton of artists. Loved the interviews too but mostly skipped the typed short stories. The longer form graphic stories were where the collection really shined, but I personally would have not included a bunch of the 1-2 pagers since they didn’t have time to build dread or world building. Also a “the end” indicator would have been great as a few of them I wound up flipping back and forth to be sure I was finished. All in all a great read for horror enthusiasts. The print quality of this is really fantastic too, I don’t know if it warranted a hard cover but the production is solid.

[Mee Too · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a hard read. Way too long for a book of anthologies. In general anthologies are typically only gonna have maybe 30% of relatable stories to the reader. So 400 pages of pretty bad stories and dull interviews, is not helping the situation.

2.9 for Ram V and a very few others

[Sal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good horror anthology; most of the comics short stories could have been longer.

[Dawson Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

My least favorite type of horror, so abstract that it leaves too much to the imagination! Big disappointment from tyion’s sections

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror in graphic narrative form may be my favorite way to consume horror media. Something about horror lends itself so well to comics. This was such a delight to pore over!

[Matthew Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag, but more was good than was not.