The Skin You’re In

This lush, sensuous body horror collection from Franklin (The Hills of Estrella Roja) electrifies with its chilling depictions of decay and regeneration. Spooky and satisfying folktales include “No Bones Nancy” and “Fruiting Bodies,” which evoke American murder ballads and campfire yarns. Connoisseurs of viral “creepypasta” style internet fare will appreciate entries like “#plantmom,” where a murderous fern takeover unfolds through a series of increasingly bizarre Instagram posts. Another social media plot turns nasty in “Contest Winner,” the graphic novella that closes out the collection. As the story unfolds, the reunion of a group of friends in West Texas—where “it’s so quiet it feels like the end of the world”—slow-burns into a desert nightmare. The mostly black-and-white art takes occasional excursions into color, and Franklin’s intimate chamber pieces recall the blood-soaked melodrama of Emily Carroll and Junji Ito, as well as Stephen Gammell’s illustrations from Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. Though the vignettes are not explicitly interconnected, the often-queer themes and repeated visual and thematic elements suggest a shared universe—where mysterious plants and fungi act both as metaphor and looming threat to the existential joys and terrors of the human body. It’s a tantalizing new entry in the queer horror canon. (Nov.)