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In the thick of a dense wood, a young man comes upon a decrepit house and two teen-aged girls, who quickly decide to explore the abandoned house together. Simmons captures the aloof ennui and deep curiosity of being a teenager — that is, until events force them to confront their own mortality. This adventurous, silent graphic novel demonstrates the solid strength of this young cartoonist's storytelling ability. Whether plunging into the watery depths of a sinkhole that has obviously swallowed part of a town or entering the uncertain hidden corridors of the house, every turn is captured with intensity by Simmons' scratchy pen. Page composition and panel arrangements are masterfully coordinated to reflect the characters' increasingly claustrophobic panic as the story reaches its crescendo, and to cause a similar and palpable reaction in the reader. House is Josh Simmons' first full-length graphic novel after years of honing his craft on the humorous, underground comic series Happy, and it is a visual and formal tour de force that proclaims Simmons a major cartooning talent of the new century.

In Mark of the Bat, a Bat-Hero invents a new method to fight crime. In Twilight of the Bat, Bats and Joke Man wander through a post-apocalyptic G—– City. Who is leaving them morning cupcakes?? Twilight of the Bat debuts this weekend at the Short Run comics fest 2017.

This is the second unauthorized Batman comic to be written by Josh Simmons, that unsparing specialist in physical, emotional and moral breakdown. The first one was a self-published minicomic printed in 2007 under the simple title of Batman and subsequently posted online; it depicted the caped crusader at his most ideologically severe, lecturing a disgusted Catwoman on how he's devised a magnificent means of permanently disfiguring criminals. Batman cannot ever kill, you see, so it's crucial that the superstitious and cowardly lot that is the criminal element be marked - to live forever with the shame of their transgressions, and to be shunned, then, by all the good people of society. On its own, this is not an original idea. Lee Falk's transitional superhero character and Batman predecessor the Phantom left the mark of a skull on the jaws of those villains he struck, while the yet-earlier pulp character the Spider stamped his brand upon the foes he felled, but Simmons' Batman is depicted with unusual intimacy: knees pressing against his chin as he curls up to dream of packed prisons and children getting blasted with fire-hoses, swooning ecstatically, high above a tottering riot of Gotham rooftops...

This is a blackly comedic take on horror tropes―a backpacker arrives in a strange town, a man and his dog delve into some mysterious woods―in the form of atmospheric short comics. Flayed Corpse and Other Stories contains more than two dozen of examples of Simmons’s deft voice and vision. The individual stories in Flayed Corpse stand on their own as minimasterpieces of skin-crawling terror, but collectively complement each other in a way that only heightens the anxiety and dread pouring from page to page. Flayed Corpse also collects several collaborations between Simmons and other cartoonists, including James Romberger, Anders Nilsen, Tara Booth, Eroyn Franklin, Tom Van Deusen, and Eric Reynolds, amongst others.

Hot on the heels of his first graphic novel, House, Josh Simmons' Jessica Farm fuses serialized adventure, fantasy and psychological horror and stamps it with his signature macabre sensibility in his atmospheric new graphic novel. Like a Lynchian take on Alice in Wonderland, Jessica Farm opens with an exterior of what could be any Midwestern farmhouse: once inside, we track our titular heroine as she bounds out of bed on Christmas and goes about her morning routine, eventually breakfasting with her grandparents. The banality of the situation is subverted by a ratcheting sense of dread, however, as we discover that Jessica's increasingly nightmarish house is filled with creatures around every corner: some whimsical, some sexual, some despairing and some malevolent. Jessica Farmis an ambitious experiment in world-building: as conceived by Simmons, this book is the first volume of a life-spanning comics project in which he drew one page every month for the past seven years, starting in January 2000 — and will continue this project for 50 years in total, making up the story as he goes and releasing 96-page increments every 8 years until he amasses a 600-page body of work.

The Furry Trap contains 11 short stories, varying in length from one to 30 pages, as well as a number of “extras” that will flesh out the reader’s experience. From the title creatures in “Night of the Jibblers,” to the witches and ogres of “Cockbone,” to the Godzilla-sized, centaur-bodied depiction of the title character in “Jesus Christ,” to the disarmingly cute yet terrifying demons of “Demonwood,” to the depraved, caped crusading antihero in “Mark of the Bat,” Simmons is a master of creating terrifying beasties that inspire and inflict nightmarish horrors, usually taken to unforgettable extremes. The individual stories in The Furry Trap stand on their own as mini-masterpieces of skin-crawling terror, but collectively complement each other in a way that only heightens the anxiety and dread pouring from page to page. Just remember: You've been warned.

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 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 genre of horror (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. "Josh Simmons has concocted a hellish world in which madwomen roam a post-apocalyptic landscape - but its battlescars are nothing compared to the self-obliterating hell of their own minds. A horrifying, unforgettable vision." - Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women)