Black River

Josh Simmons returns with his first full-length graphic novel since 2007’s acclaimed House. A group of women, one man, and two dogs are making their way through a post-apocalyptic world in search of a city that supposedly still has electricity and some sort of civilization. Along the way, they go to a comedy club, take a drug called Gumdrop, and encounter gangs of men who are either fools, lunatics, or murderous sadists. In other words, all manner of terrors. Josh Simmons is one of the field’s most distinctive voices in the horror genre (The Furry Trap, House), and this full-length graphic novel is his best work yet, echoing director John Carpenter’s perfect tick-tock pacing, as well as Shirley Jackson’s ability to transcend genre and turn it into literature.

Rich Barrett, Mental Floss

"...[Black River] is a dark, post-apocalyptic survivalist story that makes The Walking Dead read like an all-ages comic. ... Nihilistic, apocalyptic fiction seems a dime a dozen in today’s landscape, but Simmons manages to shock most jaded readers by giving you the sense that anything horrible can and will happen. There are some seriously disturbing scenes that are made all the more chilling by Simmons’ black and white artwork and the seeming glee he takes in depicting them. That’s not to say it’s a completely dire read―the dark humor gives these women a strange but believable presence and life within this terrible world."

Hillary Brown, Paste

"Josh Simmons’ Black River is an impressively unnerving work, a slim black-and-white tale of a group of (mostly) women making their way through a post-apocalyptic landscape, struggling for survival and hope. ... Informed by dreams and shot through with gut-level anxiety rather than heroic cliché, Black River winds in an unpredictable pattern. No one is safe. No one is nice. Any one of its characters could be us."

Publishers Weekly

"...[A]n amazing depiction of bleakness... Simmons is no stranger to creating atmospheric horror, using dense black-and-white linework for vivid depictions of destroyed cities and people with nothing left to lose. Dead, angular trees, plain, grimy clothing, and eyes that range from burnt-out to sheer insanity mix with swirling, angry backgrounds, setting a scene better than any horror movie could."

Richard Pachter, The Miami Herald

"Simmons is a grimly witty take-no-prisoners storyteller, and his smart and violent tale is well paced and startling."

Zach Hollwedel, Under the Radar

"Simmons' take on the end of the world--fittingly illustrated entirely in black and white--is gruesome and brutal. Not for the squeamish--and for mature readers only--it is a tale of our biological response to our looming demise. Even when life is at its most despairing and unconquerable, we persist. ...[F]or fans of such melancholic end of world scenarios as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, it is sure to be a dark and grim treat."

Abraham Riesman, Vulture

"Postapocalyptic storytelling isn’t exactly in short supply for any medium these days, but Josh Simmons does it so damn well that you’ll instantly forgive him for picking a well-worn concept. Black River... is unforgettably brutal. The vignettes ― a frigid orgy, a set from a calmly insane stand-up comic, an underwater hallucination ― are as visceral as they are eerie."

Heidi MacDonald, The Beat

"It’s a relentlessly grim story, without even The Walking Dead’s zombie menace to blame for humankind’s descent into cruelty and violence―and the shreds of civilization that do remain make it even more horrific. Simmons contrasts the austere beauty of the winter world with the frantic, gushing human struggle beneath."

Sean Rogers, The Comics Journal

"[Black River] use[s] genre not to entertain, but to carve away at something rotten. [It] document[s] a kind of moral entropy―the creeping disintegration of everything right and good ...think The Road, but filmed by Herschell Gordon Lewis..."

Pete Redrup, The Quietus

"If you're looking for happy endings, this isn't the comic for you. There's only one type of closure in this world, and the most anyone can hope for is that when death comes it is swift. Josh Simmons does not pretend otherwise, and Black River is all the more powerful for it. This is a bleak, chilling but excellent graphic novel."

Daniel Carpenter, Bookmunch

"This is a book about survival, told with delicacy and weight. ... This is a very fine comic indeed, and depending on how much gore you can stomach, this is a must read."

Andrew Yates, Comics Tavern

"As creepy and dark as Black River gets, it never loses its sense of humanity..."

Andy Wolverton, Journeys in Darkness and Light

"Black River is one of the most uncompromisingly brutal, bleak and violent books I’ve read in quite some time."

Alex Hoffman, Sequential State

"Black River, unlike the many other post-apocalyptic stories, doesn’t give its reader the satisfaction of a glimmer of hope. Nothing is going to get better. No one is going to survive."

About the Author

Josh Simmons was born in Connecticut in 1977. He is the creator or co-creator of the graphic novels House, Jessica Farm, Black River, The Furry Trap, Flayed Corpse, All Time Comics Zerosis Deathscape, and Dream of the Bat. In addition, he has contributed to many comics and anthologies including Kramers Ergot, Creepy, Mome, Razorblades and NOW. He has also self-published piles of minicomics, including his most recent series, Ghouls. He currently lives in Portland, OR.

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