Wednesday Comics Reviews: A journey into Mike Mignola’s LANDS UNKNOWN, and more

In this week’s Wednesday Comics column, Mike Mignola’s new shared universe expands with Ben Stenbeck’s Lands Unknown: The Skinless Man #1, we look at a pair of finales with Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring #6 and Sleep #8, and more! Plus, FOC Watch and The Prog Report!

Lands Unknown: The Skinless Man #1

Writer/Artist: Ben Stenbeck
Colors: Dave Stewart 
Letters: Clem Robins
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics/Curious Objects

Review by Clyde Hall

A weary traveler, his talking dire wolf steed, and his agreeable rabbit companion (who also talks) take shelter in a witch’s hovel during a violent storm. Around a warm, roaring fireplace their hostess begins telling a story of raiders led by the Thief-King El Kubra, an innocent golden-eyed child taken as plunder, and the quest for a giant to bake a sanguinary confection. And it only gets better from there. 

If you’ve seen any of the Sinbad or Conan movies, the tone of Lands Unknown: The Skinless Man should be familiar. Creatures from folklore, mad wizards manipulating pawns across an ancient landscape, and sword battles with much cleaving in twain prevail. Those talking animals add into the mix a disturbing element of Narnia under permanent White Witch management. Which conjures a horror aspect writer Ben Stenbeck has fostered from past creative endeavors with Mike Mignola.  

Stenbeck also provides the art, and the combination here is an organic, winning one. The opening couldn’t work otherwise. A nebulous introduction of the trio seeking shelter and finding it in a hut visually homey and horrific tells readers much more about the travelers and the witch granting them hospitality than the sparse dialogue. A cheery reprieve from the storm, lit by a blazing hearth complete with a simmering stewpot, has telltale bones hanging like stalactites in its shadowy edges. The simple contrast is shiver-worthy. 

Minimalist in approach the narrative and visuals may be, but Stenbeck puts it to great effect. The unwinding of the hostess’s tale carries us into the same sheltered place the travelers find, then entwines them. For the tale isn’t only fascinating, it’s one her guests have played their own parts in.   

Effectively, her spell catches us all in a spiderweb weaving of campfire tales and folklore. It’s reminiscent of how we first heard the legends of the Yule Cat or read about Jason and the Golden Fleece based on Apollonius’s epic and felt connected. As if we’re sharing the legacy of countless listeners across centuries who heard and then repeated such tales for amusement. As cautionary lessons. The mythological fantasy-adventure with horror overtones Stenbeck crafts makes you feel part of a larger audience lost to antiquity, discovering once again a story too mythic, too marrow-freezing, to remain lost. 

One that’s visually forged in double-edged sharpness, one side beatific as Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the other a butcher’s tapestry of festering pox, severed limbs, and feasting carrion crows. In this manner, the story pace quickens and slows in ways easy to follow for the most part. An exception on the first readthrough was a battle against a shapeshifter which turned confusing as regards what parts were bitten off by who and from whom. Second read cleared this up, but for a book which otherwise flowed like finest Pramnian wine, it was jarring in the moment. 

The creative team, including Clem Robins on letters and Dave Stewart on colors, covers a lot of ground quickly in the first issue of Lands Unknown: The Skinless Man because it must. It’s the first half of a 2-issue series. It’s also a continuation of the Lands Unknown Universe seen in Bowling with Corpses. 

And being such a short series serves its purpose well. Campfire tales were often brief as they were scary, the teller absolutely relating the foreboding and the action directly, quickly, and effectively. Movies which hit a similar fantasy adventure/mythic horror note also tended to be short, relying on visual punches from Ray Harryhausen’s artistry bringing creatures of folklore and myth to life. Stenbeck, with variation, is throwing onto the same pottery wheel and crafting a similar vessel. This is fiction as appropriately fitting oral tradition guidelines, brief and suspense-building, with art that delivers action punches that could easily accommodate stop-motion skeleton warriors or Talos the living statue.

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring #6

Cartoonist: Patrick Horvath
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher: IDW Publishing

Review by Sean Dillon

Sleep #8

Cartoonist: Zander Cannon
Publisher: Image Comics

Review by Zack Quaintance

So, this week brings to an end Zander Cannon’s mini-series Sleep, which has been one of the most compulsively readable periodical comics in a good long while. If you haven’t read this book — and are still for some reason reading this review of its finale — Sleep has a relatively simple concept and structure. A bout of violence is plaguing a small town, and our main character slowly figures out that he’s at the center of it, and whatever is happening is happening when he goes to sleep. There is, of course, a lot more complexity around that, but those are the broad strokes. 

Frequently in Sleep, the protagonist wakes up in the middle of bloody carnage. And the way the book works, is that we as readers have a close third person POV. We know only what the main character knows, really, which isn’t very much about what’s happening, at least not through the first seven issues.

Well, that changes in this finale. We get to see (most) of what’s going on. Doing a big finale reveal is inherently tricky business. Will it live up to the expectations that readers have built along the way? Will it be satisfying? Will it reveal enough as to not feel without a cop out while not revealing so much that everything that comes before feels boring?

Sleep #8 walks that line really well. We get to see chunks of what happened, without an over-explanation of how. It’s hinted at why, and we as an audience get enough to proscribe our own meaning onto the events of the book, at least that’s how I read it. It’s open-ended enough that there will also surely be other theories and explanations, which is part of what makes it work so well.

In the end, I think Sleep is a real accomplishment, a great, well-paced horror comic that reminded me through its run how much fun a well-done periodical series can be. I’m going to take a breather — or, should I say, a nap? — and then come back and binge the thing all at once in full, and I suggest you do the same.

Exploit #1

Writers: Tim Leong and Laura Hudson
Artist: Emiliana Pina
Colorist: Rebecca Good
Letterer Frank Cvetkovic 
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios

Review by Gianni Palumbo

We all hate massive corporations, right? In the past 3 or 4 years especially, comically evil out of touch, and creatively devoid executives and CEOs have been shoving AI down our throats, consolidating and buying out smaller companies leading to massive layoffs while lining their own pockets. It’s bleak, and it sucks to put it bluntly, but has led to a plethora of great art that points a dagger right at the heart of these issues. Exploit #1 from Mad Cave promises to be just that.

Written by Tim Leong and Laura Hudson with art by Emiliana Pina, Exploit #1 follows Kirby Kuo, a 34-year-old journalism intern for RIOT Magazine who when pitching a story to editor-in-chief Rowan learns that the magazine has been bought out by insufferable CEO tech-bro Cole Saxon. With the help of her roommate Lenox and the shady corners of the dark web, gets access to files that could destroy Cole Saxon, putting her in danger but will preserve the mission of RIOT, speaking the truth to power in the tech world.

This comic hits the nail on the head with a lot of folks’ frustration in the modern world. The rich are greedy, evil, and out of touch, with the titular Cole Saxon being an almost one-to-one analog for Elon Musk. He’s annoying privileged man-child using out of style lingo trying very hard to be the “cool” and “relatable” CEO while cutting jobs for dozens of hard working journalists and turning this publication into a safe corporate mouthpiece. The comic is incredibly on the nose but never goes over the line of being annoying or preachy. It’s incredibly angry, directly pointing at what’s wrong with modern society, but balances it with its hilarious satire, brilliant pacing and incredibly fun characters that keep the audience more engaged. Every character has a distinct voice and with Emiliana Pinna’s pencils and Rebecca Good’s colors everyone has a unique design that, for my money, definitely passes the silhouette test. 

All in all, Exploit #1 is a fun first issue that speaks directly to our troubling times and sets up a tense modern day All the President’s Men-like thriller that I can’t wait to continue reading.

FOC Watch

The below title is currently available for pre-order at your local comic shop!

Estuary #1

Writers: DB Andry and Tim Daniel
Artist: Maan House
Colorist: Steve Cannon
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
Publisher: Oni Press
Due Out: April 8, 2026

Review by Zack Quaintance

Estuary #1 is one of the moodiest (complimentary) horror comics I’ve read in years. It sweeps up a lot of great ingredients — from its Northern California setting to historical Catholic missions-turned-influencer experiences to a flirty meeting at sea — and comes out the other side with a restrained, deeply chilling first issue.

The book is illustrated by Maan House with colors by Steve Cannon, and they serve up a  largely silent first sequence that makes a Pacific Ocean sunset ominous and creepy, which is not an obvious choice at all — and I love it for that. It’s just such a great tone-setter for all that is to come. House is as skilled of a horror artist as there is in comics, and Cannon colors his work with a perfect brooding palette. There’s something stark and lonely in the way the duo depict the Northern California scenery here, and it does wonders for the ambiance of the book, right from the jump. It’s also all augment perfectly by the lettering of Taylor Esposito, which is restrained in the same way the book is, making perfect complimentary choices throughout.

The script from the writing duo of DB Andry and Tim Daniel is also perhaps their best yet. I’m a big fan of their regular collaboration, especially when they go dark and ominous and isolated with their locale (their forest-set book, Morning Star, is one I especially recommend). With Estuary, the scripting is spare and efficient, and it’s also versatile, as capable of giving us a bouncy mission tour with yoga on one page as it is exploring a crisis of faith on the next.

But really I think it’s the setting that is used best by the entire creative team. Distinct settings are elements I’m very much partial to in my horror comics. As noted, the book is set in Northern California, in a remote area along the coast, and the script incorporates both the loneliness of the nature there as well as the history of missionary settlements and the current day of social media domination. It’s all used just enough, making the story immersive and intriguing and mysterious and understated. 

At one point, a character says “Brunch cruises in the Bay, certified Pilates-instructing nuns, midnight ghost tours…it’s wild.”, and I thought, you know, that just might make for the best possible solicit copy for this book. The characters in the book are also born of the setting. They are boat tour influencers and highly-educated marine archeologist and enterprising nuns. I’ve spent time in Northern California, having lived there for three years, and there’s just such a natural feeling to everything done in Estuary, a smoothness to the comic that makes it very easy to get into. 

But, of course, this is a horror comic too, and so it needs to bring the scares. And while I won’t spoil that, if you (like me) think the ocean is creepy as hell, this book is going to get you and get you good. It’s just such a fantastic start, the type of first issue that made me go online and look up when part two is out (sadly, not until May!).

Finally, I want to note here that this book is edited by Bess Pallares, and while editors are often the least-sung heroes in comics, I wanted to note that Pallares has been cultivating some of the best titles in comics in the past few years, especially when it comes to dark and spooky stuff. From Out of Alcatraz to High Strangeness, there’s a clarity of vision in the titles that Pallares works on, and Estuary is just the latest in a great streak.

The Prog Report

• 2000AD 2472 (Rebellion): You know what, I think this might be one of my favorite issues of 2000AD to date, featuring as it does a Judge Dredd story with face-punchingly-excellent art, and a giant-sized return from probably the most complex recurring strip in this magazine, Brink. Let’s start with Dredd (as 2000AD itself does every week). It’s Judge Dredd: Climate Crisis Part 2 this week from writers Rob Thompson and Ned Hartley, artist PJ Holden, colorist Jack Davies, and letterer Annie Parkhouse. Holden is a fantastic artist, one of those whose work just screams comics to me, and he really goes hard in this chapter, particularly in the segment where Dredd and his cohorot are in low earth orbit, being torn apart by overly-powerful gravity boots and gloves. PJ blogs about it here, but he was reading the artist edition of Daniel Warren Johnson’s Extremity while working on these pages, and it shows. Meanwhile, we get an extra-long return from Brink this week (yes!) from the team of writer Dan Abnett, artist INJ Culbard, and letterer Simon Bowland. Brink is complex sci-fi of the highest order, one that trusts readers to be smart enough to keep up. It’s nice to have it back. Finally, also wanted to shout out Herne and Shuck: Power Trip by writer David Barnett, artist Lee Milmore, colorist Gary Caldwell, and letterer Annie Parkhouse, for its hilarious characterization of King Arthur, a man defeated by his curiosity over WenchHub and OnlyWenches. A great bunch of nonsense, that was. This week’s cover (above) is by INJ Culbard. As always, you can pick up a digital copy of The Prog here. —Zack Quaintance

Column edited by Zack Quaintance.

Read past entries in the weekly Wednesday Comics reviews series or check-out our other reviews here!