Young Wren moves to a new house with her parents, and almost immediately discovers a strange girl, Ziggy, in the woods outside the new abode. Soon, Wren is accompanying Ziggy on a surreal and scary adventure through a nearby house, which seems to be full of secrets.

And goop. Lots and lots of goop.

This first issue of There Are Houses in the Woods does a fantastic job of setting up its premise and pushing our young protagonist into a scary adventure. Its overall aesthetic recalls the look of such shows as Gravity Falls or The Owl House, and like both of those shows, There Are Houses in the Woods isn’t afraid to go to some genuinely terrifying places.

Make no mistake; despite the cute art, there’s some genuine tension and frights here, with the Ghibli-esque tone of magic realism soon giving way to a much more surreal story. By the final page, we don’t yet have answers as to what’s going on, or what exactly inhabits the spooky house in the woods.

It’s really compelling, and though it ends on a cliffhanger, everything here and more can be read online at Webtoon. So if you were as riveted as I was by the story, you can check it out and continue it pretty much straight away!

Thanks to creators Matthew and Caitlin Brasel for sending me a digital copy of There Are Houses in the Woods #1 for review purposes.

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