Oni; $19.99  

It’s been 13 years since average suburbanite Orin McCabe snapped and murdered his whole family. As he waits on death row, his old house has drawn the interest of ghosthunters who believe that it could be haunted. The ghosthunters are Del (who believes in spirts and hopes to find them), Jacob (a religious man who fears that ghosts might actually be demons), and Holland (the group’s skeptic).  

The team gains notoriety after their first visit to the house, and they are contacted by more and more people who want help with their own spiritual nuisances. Though initially excited about the uptick in business, the team struggles with their new fame. Things get more complicated when people connected to the hauntings start to die and it seems that Plague House may have infected the team. 

From the first issue, writer Michael W. Conrad and artist Dave Chisholm established an ominous tone and teased sinister forces for a twisted ghost story. They quickly established each ghost hunter’s opinion on hauntings and how to handle them, which makes for complex group dynamics as the series continues. Then instead of confining the story to the house, they expand the narrative to show the cost of messing with supernatural forces as their time at Plague House follows them down dark paths.  

The creators make bold, interesting choices in this book and I honestly didn’t know what to expect from one issue to the next. 

–Amanda Sheriff