Writer: R.L. Stine
Artist: Carola Borelli
Colorist: Francesco Segala & Gloria Martinelli
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Cover Artists: Miguel Mercado, Dan Mora, Tula Lotay & Zu Orzu
Designers: Becca Carey & Grace Park
Editors: Caroline Butler, Sophie Philips-Roberts & Mark Gagnon
Publisher: Boom!
Price: $9.99
Release Date: April 30, 2025
Parker, Patti, Trip, and Rhonda live in Graves End. A cemetery surrounds the town, and shrieking bats fly overhead every night. Patti is jealous of Trip, who has already secured a job for the summer. But Parker and Rhonda have more on their minds than summer jobs. The friends still wonder what happened to their fathers. Can Patti get a job to give her a sense of empowerment? And will Parker and Rhonda learn why their fathers disappeared after a poker game at the Dockside Inn? Let’s grab our flashlights, leap into The Graveyard Club: Fresh Blood #1, and find out!
Story
Patti has approached all the businesses in Graves End, but no one wants her. Her last shot at a summer job is Fenkman’s Pharmacy. She doesn't want to work for him, so Parker accompanies her inside for emotional support. But the pharmacist says No. If he hires anyone, it won't be a teenager. He has spent enough time running his pharmacy to know that teenagers are always up to no good. Despite their protestations, the pharmacist insists Patti and Parker let him search their backpacks before they leave his store.
Thankfully, the friends have another opportunity to make money in The Graveyard Club: Fresh Blood #1. Their school is competing with South Valley in a robotics competition. The winning entry will win $5,000. Unfortunately, the local bully has a beef with them. When Billy Roy catches them working on their robot in the art classroom, he sabotages their efforts. Parker doesn't brook insults or attacks lightly. So when Mr Wesson finds them fighting, he lets Billy-Roy go but threatens Parker and his friends with suspension unless they clean up the classroom.
There is a reason why the art teacher doesn’t punish Billy-Roy in R.L. Stine’s story. The town bully is the son of Sheriff Ray-Ray Higgins. The sheriff is always alert for trouble and anxious to turn misdemeanors into felonies. Like Mr Fenkman, Sheriff Ray-Ray has decided that Parker, Patti, Trip, and Rhonda are always up to no good. He intends to catch them perpetuating their evil schemes.
Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Graves End, greater evils than teenagers threaten them. A mystery surrounds the Dockside Inn in The Graveyard Club: Fresh Blood #1. Although his grandmother begs Parker to stay away, he and Rhonda are determined to learn why their fathers never returned from the poker game five years ago.
Art
Parker and Patti hold hands as they walk between the historic buildings lining the street to Fenkman’s Pharmacy. While Trip smiles, Patti looks around, her muscles tight, as she prepares to enter Mr Fenkman’s shop. Although Parker is never afraid to show his emotions, Rhonda wears a perpetual frown. Her black hair, lipstick, and clothes suggest that her father's disappearance has soured her on life and links her with the bats that appear each night to menace the populace.
Carola Borelli's inked shadows heighten the darkness surrounding Parker and his friends in
The Graveyard Club: Fresh Blood #1. Gray surrounds Francesco Segala and Gloria Martinelli’s limited colors, suggesting the bats are symptoms of a larger malaise afflicting the town. The green pharmacy suggests Mr Fenkman’s medicines are incapable of battling the disease and links with the green poker table where Parker and Rhonda's fathers once played. Red accompanies actions and signifies threats. It glows like burning coals from a mysterious cloaked figure with a menacing, inhuman face. The colors shift in moments of intense action and drama, forming auras that warn of a dark transformation.
Jim Campbell scares uppercase black letters into white dialogue balloons and colored narrative boxes. The letters grow bold for intonation, swell for raised voices, and convey laughter and sobbing. While music notes soar over the best party ever, sounds rise above attacking animals and swarming bats to herald a discovery that changes Parker and Rhonda's understanding of what happened to their fathers. Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a copy for review.
Final Thoughts
Parker and his friends struggle for meaning in a town clinging to life. While addressing generational change and prejudice, The Graveyard Club: Fresh Blood #1 symbolizes the dangers threatening the vibrancy and future of small towns everywhere.
Rating 8.5/10
For more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
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