Review - The Creeps

The Creeps (Deep Dark Fears Collection #2)
by Fran Krause
Date: 2017
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Reading level: A
Book type: comic collection
Pages: 144
Format: e-book
Source: library

A follow-up to the New York Times best-selling Deep Dark Fears: a second volume of comics based on people's quirky, spooky, hilarious, and terrifying fears.

Illustrator, animator, teacher, and comic artist Fran Krause has touched a collective nerve with his wildly popular web comic series--and subsequent New York Times best-selling book--Deep Dark Fears. Here he brings readers more of the creepy, funny, and idiosyncratic fears they love illustrated in comic form--such as the fear that your pets will tell other animals all your embarrassing secrets, or that someone uses your house while you're not home--as well as two longer comic short-stories about ghosts.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I'm not sure if I liked this one. Some of the fears were kind of funny, and the illustrations made me smile, but there were an awful lot of these fears that made me feel like most parents need to take a mandatory class on how not to make their kids neurotic. Between telling their children they're actually a cyborg that they switch off every night, to implying they'll turn into a fish if they stay in the bathtub too long, to planting a fear of the Rapture that's triggered every time the kid sees a pile of laundry, many of these parents really needed a time-out on the naughty spot.

The illustrations are crude and simple, but they work. I didn't really like the few longer "stories" that were included. They didn't follow the format of the rest, and I didn't see why they were singled out.

This is apparently the second book in a series, but it's not like there's any continuity between the fears themselves, so I doubt you have to have read the first book to get something out of this one. This was okay for a few minutes of entertainment, but it's probably something I'll forget about pretty quickly.

Quotable moment:

Fear #69:

Sometimes when the sun is bright,
I worry my glasses will amplify the light,
like a magnifying glass can do to ants,
and I'll get two holes burned through my head.

Writing & Editing: 3/5
Illustration: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 ladybugs