When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

” - Melissa Brinks, Women Write About Comics “ When I Arrived at the Castle feels like slipping into a rich velvet robe only to find that its red color is from centuries of bloodstains. “The environs of the castle become part of the very structure of the page with those floating reds floating across the stygian darkness and giving the reader the feeling of characters moving as much through a void of experiences as they are a physical space. Here it takes shape through Carroll’s incredible capacity to scare …” - Shea Hennum, The Comics Journal “As with any good fairy tale, there is magic (of sorts). “Carroll’s work feels ancient and gothic, like, say, a castle. “Her full-bleed pages and limited palette, her incongruous close-ups, her weird shading and her unexpected teeth all surgically peel back your skin. “Carroll is drawing her line between erotic metaphor and blood-splattering literalness. “As violence and sex intermingle, it becomes more obvious that the stories express a nexus between fear and excitement, that moment when the possibilities are defined by fright and allure, and we this is a moment we have captured again and again in multiple fairy tales, legends, myths, and other types of stories through the eras.

“Carroll’s lush, sensual artwork complements the material, creating a sense of ornate decadence and nightmarish disorientation with elegant but economical lines in a simple red-and-black color scheme with muted grey shadowing and splatter paint details.” - Publishers Weekly

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll