The Eyrie is the latest graphic novella from writer Thom Burgess and illustrator Barney Bodoano, and is a follow-up to their horror comic Malevolents – Click Click, which got pretty good reviews around the horror community a year or two ago.

Like its predecessor, The Eyrie is completely in black and white, which may be a turn-off for some, but I find it to be kind of refreshing and a good fit for the material. The tale itself utilizes shadows and darkness a great deal, so this actually feels like the best way to present it.

The story follows Rebecca, a photojournalist who is sent to a small seaside village in Sussex, England on assignment. While there, she is stalked by mysterious, shadowy figures. I hesitate to go much further into the plot because we’re only talking roughly 40 pages with minimal dialogue. Its brevity gives it a bit of a feeling that it’s not fully fleshed out, but at the same time, it generally works pretty well for what it’s trying to be, which is, in Burgess’s own words, “a classic ghost story with elements of folk horror and supernatural tales of old.”

Sometimes, it’s precisely that lack of words that effectively moves the story forward as Bodano’s illustrations give the book a surprisingly cinematic feel. At times, the images feel like storyboards for shots in a pretty creepy film, and The Eyrie is at its best during these moments.

All and all, I would describe this little story as reminiscent of something like The Fog – a simple ghost story that relies more on atmosphere than plot, and it makes for a brisk, relatively entertaining read. If you get a chance to pick it up, take it home, throw on an eerie film score of your choosing, and soak it in.