Oni Press; $4.99  

Journalist Paul Blair and Detective Michael Simms have teamed up to investigate the apparent suicide of a security guard at the defunct Crownsville State Hospital. What they soon discovered was a decaying facility that clearly contains ghosts from the past. Digging into the hospital’s history, the pair learned that the facility’s Dr. Cobbs was kidnapping and experimenting on Black children.  

Now, the angry spirits of the abused children are awakening and want revenge for what was done to them. With the help of security guard Montana, Paul and Mike were able to flee the immediate danger at the hospital and have split up to find a way to free the tortured spirits of the children and protect the public from their wrath.  

The Crownsville State Hospital was a real facility operating in the 20th century where its Black patients – ranging from the mentally ill to the homeless to children with conditions like epilepsy – were abused and neglected. There are even rumors of unethical medical testing and government run experiments. 

For the comic, writer Rodney Barnes does a masterful job of telling a story that takes real life horrors and heightens them with supernatural suspense. His writing and Elia Bonetti’s art express the insidiousness of what the comic’s characters endured based on what their real life counterparts went through. What shines is how that plays out in the story. Barnes does not dumb things down by simplifying the message with lengthy speeches. Instead, he lets the story, its characters, and Bonetti’s emotionally charged art drive the point home the way talented storytellers do. 

–Amanda Sheriff