This is the story of a couple living in an ordinary suburban neighborhood. Everyone wears cute animal masks on their heads, but somehow this is ordinary as well. Everything is fine, even though it clearly isn't - everyone's being constantly monitored, "freedom" can only be attained if you sell out your neighbors, and Winston the dog has been dead for a while.

I was hesitant to try this because the art wasn't really to my taste. It's simple and bland, and if you just flip through the volume you might think that people's animal heads are their actual faces, so all facial expressions are uniformly happy and cute in a stale sort of way. It works very well for the story, though, so I'm glad I gave this a shot.

This first volume raises a lot more questions than it answers. We don't know how or why everything ended up this way. There are no children anywhere, and characters go out of their way to avoid acknowledging anything unpleasant. Whatever it is seems to have been going on for a while, because Winston was pretty decomposed, but not so long that folks didn't remember how things used to be.

Considering how little effort Maggie, the wife, made to hide the signs that she no longer wanted to pretend everything was fine, it was tough to believe that no one confronted her earlier, and I didn't really expect her to be alive by the end of the volume. Volume 2 may strain my sense of disbelief even more, but I'm intrigued enough by whatever horror is going on under the surface of all of this to want to continue on.

Extras:

A note from the author, plus bonus pages showing comparisons of the original Webtoon artwork vs. the remastered artwork, and some bonus comics ("demonic mode," "headless mode," and "Victorian mode") originally made to interest people in the author's Patreon.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

1984 gets crossed with a childless and paranoid version of the old The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet sitcom where the cast wears Hello Kitty heads to literally mask their inner turmoil and maintain the "everything is fine" facade of their oppressive society.

Weird but sort of compelling.

I think the cliffhanger jumped the gun and frittered away too much of the slow-burn atmosphere for some gratuitous shock, but I'll be back for the next installment to see what the fallout might be.

FOR REFERENCE:

Collects episodes 1-16 of the WEBTOON comic.

Contents:
• Prologue: Everything Is Fine
• Part 1: The New Forever
• Part 2: Swings and Roundabouts
• Part 3: Spaghetti Western
• Part 4: Mise en Place
• Part 5: Friends for Dinner
• Part 6: An Iron Voice
• Part 7: Forget Me Not
• Part 8: Crocodile Teeth
• Part 9: Try It at Home
• Bonus Material ( )

Everything Is Fine by Mike Birchall from @webtoonofficial is the cutie dystopian horror graphic novel I didn’t know I needed. Don’t let the illustration style deceive you; this story is absolutely unsettling. I was already sufficiently creeped out by the end of the first chapter alone.

Sam and Maggie appear to have the perfect 50s style life; they live in the perfect suburban neighborhood, he goes to work, she takes care of the house, life is good, and everything is fine. Except for the giant cat heads that everyone are wearing. And where are the children? And what happened to the dog?

This is a slyly crafted story, told through adorable-looking characters and a charming color palette that hides the unsettling, disturbing undertones of the story. Living in a world that is under constant surveillance, both Sam and Maggie are clearly disconnected from what is going on around them, just accepting that this is how life is. However, it’s only when Maggie begins to have thoughts that seem to be her own and she starts to question their lives do the couple begin to see the cracks in the shiny, perfect veneer of their lives, and they begin to realize that everything may not, in fact, be perfect.

You can read this wholly original and creeptastic story on the Webtoons app or website, or purchase the collected edition of the first season of the story. Volume 2, collecting the second season that is already available online, will be published October 17, 2023.

#everythingisfine #webtoon #mikebirchall #horror #dystopia #graphicnovel #bookreview #booksbooksbooks #book #bookworm #bookstagram #booklover #bookaddict #frommybookshelf #frommybookshelfblog ( )

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger warning for violence and suicidal imagery.)

Sam and Maggie are just a 'normal' couple who live in a 'normal' suburban small town: Neatly trimmed hedgerows. White picket fences. Ned Flanders-esque neighbors. And surveillance cameras on every street corner. Yup, that's life in Neighborhood 147D - the American Dream-turned-Nightmare.

EVERYTHING IS FINE is a super-weird and incredibly eerie dystopian comic; the creeping sense of horror is underscored by the art's cuter elements (the humans all wear cat masks, ferchrissakes!). There's also mystery component (cue the mantra, "just forget!") and some pretty graphic violence in the story's climax - which is about as cliffhanger-y as you can get.

I'm not sure what else to say without dropping spoilers, except that the cop looks an awful lot like Officer Jay from THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM.

Volume 1 collects episodes 1-16 of webtoons comic. If you'd rather not wait for Volume 2 to arrive, you can read ahead online! ( )