Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Writer: Paul Tobin
Artwork: PJ Holden
Colours: Sara Colella
Letters: Taylor Esposito
Release Date: 12th March 2025

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Before delving into this wonderful new horror story, it behooves me to point out that the opening made me feel old. The premise is one previously well-established in spooky tales: A lone adventurer braving the wild unknown suffers some calamity. Where in the past we would have read the accounts of this individual via something like a recovered diary or some such, here everything is live streamed to the world. Its not that I don’t ‘get’ this new-fangled tech and streaming culture, its just I realised I’m removed enough that it being so front and centre, cleverly subverting these established tropes, that I’m reminded of how stories change. What if the Starkweather-Moore Expedition had been broadcasting? What would classics like At the Mountains of Madness look like today? I was eager to find out.

So as I say, this new series opens with the internet adventurer Hooky Hidalgo exploring Denali, the tallest peak in Alaska, being saved from a grim fall by a fortunate snow bank. Equally fortuitously, they rise to find themselves at an expansive cave opening full of intricate carvings with mineral formations that are out of place for the geology of the area. Our vantage point as a reader than shifts from Hidalgo over to the diversity of their viewers; a clever way to prevent us from seeing whatever spooks Hidalgo so badly and cuts off their feed…

This brings us to Becca, Hildago’s girlfriend, and our likely protagonist. Unwilling to sit back and wait for any authority or official rescue to take place, she takes it upon herself to travel north with a determination to find her boyfriend. Upon reaching the town of Foothorn, its clear that not everything is as it seems and its not long before events start to spiral with more than a little of the supernatural thrown in.

I do like me some horror comics, and this one managed to catch me off guard in more ways than one. Instead of a slow methodical investigative thriller, it seems Tobin and the team want to get the ball rolling quickly with the action at the culmination of this first issue promising more in your face than a creeping insidious slow burn. Even if unintentional, its could perhaps be seen as a nod to the faster pace of life now than those dusty, centuries old cold stories. There’s also a bit of bait and switch as to what is going on overall which is ideally what you want to establish early in a new run.

Art direction wise, its tough to judge at the moment whether the overall tone is captured well. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong here, indeed, the characters are well delivered (with at least one tongue in cheek reference that was easy to spot) and there’s detail a plenty in every panel. If anything that’s maybe what seems at odds for me, and its just a personal choice, but I’m not sure I’m drawn into the Alaskan landscape here, more feel like a remote viewer. Putting this aside however, the actual lines and colours are great as I say, with particular attention to the end panels. The quick shift from the etheral blues to the dark sickly greens and horrors within were fab.

Dark Pyramid # 1 is a great first issue and ticks a lot of the mandatory boxes for a good horror comic. This isn’t a slow, meticulous trek into the unknown, but looks set to be a frantic descent into madness, and I’m all for it.

Rating: 3.5/5.

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[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]

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The writer of this piece was: Adam Brown
Adam Tweets from @brother_rooster

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