In the creepy and electric School Bus Graveyard, Volume 1, a YA horror graphic novel by author/illustrator Red,the school loner teams up with her classmates to slay "flesh-eating" phantoms in a shadow dimension.
Sixteen-year-old, redheaded Ashlyn has always been prickly and friendless by choice. When a field trip takes Ash and five group-project partners to Savannah, Ga., an encounter with the unknown at the haunted Sorrel Weed House--deliberately arranged by the "tour guide"--drags the teens into "the rift." Now every night, the six teens enter a dangerous "demon dimension" where the skies turn red, "the world becomes lifeless and mute," and what look like monstrous grinning shadows stalk them. The exhausted teens (how does one attend school all day after fighting monsters all night?) must get serious about finding a solution before the shadows kill them.
This first installment of School Bus Graveyard transforms a group of average high schoolers from disorganized and fearful to determined and formidable. Red's illustrative style builds a horror dynamic by restraining the nighttime palette to a black background with splashes of red. She conveys a grim, apocalyptic tone using streaks of color, blurry figures, and a grainy texture, letting the horrors of the night hang over the tired teens' school day. Red also injects bits of light and humor in the form of memeable expressions and the occasional pop-culture reference. School Bus Graveyard should appeal to manga fans, horror aficionados, teens juggling too many extracurriculars, or any reader who has tangled with sleep deprivation. --Ari Mackoff, bookseller