THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2026! Folk horror has several hallmark traits, in film and literature, that make it linger in the imagination. The 1973 film The Wicker Man remains a seminal touchstone of the genre while more recent films like Wicker demonstrate that its appeal has hardly faded. With their new graphic novel Men of the Cloth, writer Paul Kane and artist James Gray add to this well-trodden territory with aplomb.
Photographer Lance Dunham returns to England with his wife Shelley and their two children, hoping to uncover more about his family history. His destination is Camlin, an isolated village where his late mother once lived. The route to Camlin takes them through desolate country roads, stretching on for miles. It’s not long before Shelley gets irritable and the children start complaining of hunger. But Lance is determined and they eventually reach Camlin after dark.
Their arrival coincides with a local celebration as the village seems to be decorated with lights and dotted with peculiar figures made from cloth with unseeing black eyes. They manage to find a place to stay, but Shelley becomes increasingly uneasy. The village seems strangely devoid of children, and something about the place feels deeply unsettling. Before long, the family discovers the horrifying purpose behind the celebration, and Lance’s search for his family takes a far more sinister turn.
The story gradually moves from curiosity to menace, allowing details to accumulate and the atmosphere to grow increasingly oppressive. Much of the narrative unfolds through Shelley’s perspective. Having left England as a child, she has built a new life partly to escape her past, while Lance is eager to reconnect with his roots. They have very different reasons for wanting to leave the past behind or revisit it. “They say you can’t go home again” – the book opens with this thought. But what if you can, and perhaps shouldn’t? Lance’s search for belonging gradually draws him and his family into danger and it’s hard not to wish he had left some questions unanswered. The early pages are grounded in ordinary elements like a family trip and the little details that reveal a marriage under strain. This ordinariness makes the later horror cut deeper, as the narrative steadily builds a sense of dread, claustrophobia and helplessness.
James Gray’s artwork gives the cloth men an unmistakably sinister presence, particularly through their stitched features and glossy black eyes. The sunlit, colourful pastoral palette of the opening pages gives way to cold, blue-black nights, and the sepia-toned flashbacks lend the past an uneasy quality. There are a few graphic panels with stomach-churning violence and they deliver considerable impact.
A compelling, chilling read, Men of the Cloth is a fine example of folk horror.
Paul Kane (W), James Gray (A/L) • Hellbound Media
Visit the Hellbound Media website here
Review by Swati Nair
Hellbound Media are at Table A6 in the Redshirt Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2026 runs from November 9th-15th with the convention weekend taking place on the 14th-15th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
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Poster art by Núria Tamarit
