If you are in search of something to curl up with as October ushers in its familiar chill, look no further than a cup of hot chocolate and the online works of E. M. Carroll.
M. Carroll, born in 1983, is an author and illustrator from London, Ontario. They began their career in 2010, publishing comics to their website. Since then, they have lent their talents to five graphic novels and two video games, winning several awards including the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Comics. Their 2016 comic Some Other Animal’s Meat was adapted for the Netflix horror anthology series Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
Carroll’s illustrations are lush and delicate, and their stories typically follow protagonists who repeatedly push past sense and safety to pursue their own ambitions. Yet, Carroll always refrains from moralizing, preferring to leave their protagonists literally and figuratively in the dark with the consequences of their own actions. 2013’s The Three Snake Leaves, adapted from the Brothers Grimm fairytale, begins with a princess and a soldier whose marriage is sanctioned on the condition that if one dies, the other will be sealed into their lover’s tomb with them. The princess dies first, but the soldier acquires three leaves from a snake that brings her back to life. Upon her resurrection, the princess and the soldier attempt to escape the tomb. The first sign that Carroll’s digital adaptation is unique is that it ominously offers the reader the choice of whose perspective to follow next.
Critics have labeled Carroll a “master of atmosphere and mood” with “an incredible capacity to scare,” comparable to Bram Stoker and David Cronenberg. Are you brave enough to visit emcarroll.com and see if they are right?
Maya Noëlle (she/they) is rediscovering her passion for writing. When not playing Dungeons & Dragons, reading spooky comics, or co-hosting The Witching Hour on CHMA 106.9 FM, you can find her blowing kisses to the moon.