The nightcrawlers vol 1 by Marco Lopez

Illustrated by Rachel Distler, colored by Francesco Montalbano

A group of young orphan adventure seekers put together an investigation force to figure out some of the strange happenings around their town. One of their first cases is for their friend whose parents seem to have been replaced by lookalikes who are werewolves, but their investigation  proves there is more than they first believed. Meanwhile, Mr. Jacob, who runs their orphanage, has a mysterious past that isn’t just connected to his history of making scary movies, and his daughter, Marysia, is recovering memories from her childhood that don’t add up. To complicate matters further, a hunter named Greta shows up in town to hunt the werewolves, and she also has some history with Mr. Jacob that isn’t all friendly.

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The beginning of this graphic novel gets off to a rocky start with character introductions, flashback sequences, and Marysia recovering her memories, all without some needed cues to help the reader navigate the jumps from one place to the next. Once the story progresses into the next few chapters and gets into the action, things get better. There is quite a bit of information in the character biographies in the back that I wish got integrated into the story itself within character development, but hopefully this can get included in further volumes. I do appreciate the adventurous spirit of the kids and their supportive nature of each other, which is an important lesson for young readers. 

The design and layout of the story had some odd choices - dialogue was often nowhere near the characters saying it, but characters' names were sometimes included to help with the flow. This still felt disjointed as there were often five or more voices talking at once with no characters attached to them. The coloring overall was very dark, even scenes that happened during the daytime, so it could use some lightening to create more contrast with the night scenes.

Sara's Rating: 7/10
Suitability Level: Grades 5-8

Publisher: ABLAZE
Publication Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781684970582​ (Hardcover)

​Tags: Rating: 7/10, Suitability: Elementary School, Suitability: Middle School, Graphic Fiction, Horror, Friendship, Family, Ablaze