The Low, Low Woods is a limited series comic written by Carmen Maria Machado, with art by Dani and colorist Tamra Bonvillain.
Finished on: 19.1.2025

Content Note: sexualized violence, body horror

Plot:
El and Octavia are best friends. They have been living in Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania all their lives and are used to strange occurrences. But when they both wake up at the cinema with their memories missing – a condition that affects quite a few people in Shudder-to-Think – they are not content with just chalking it up as another strange thing. What they find, though, is darker than they expected.

The Low, Low Woods delivers what I expected after Machado’s short stories: a heavy, dark exploration of gendered experiences and violence with fantastic characters. In addition, we get evocative art by Dani that will stay with me for a while.

El and Octavia, or rather Vee, are the heart and soul of the story. Both are queer women of color, but other than that, they are very different indeed. Their friendship is grounded in both what they share and where they differ, and I loved exploring their world together with them, quickly caring deeply about them.

Their world is shaped by the fact that Shudder-to-Think is a coal mining town that has been dying for a while. There, Machado deftly weaves some environmental horror into the set-up that pays off nicely throughout the story, even though it never takes center stage – that is reserved for the gendered experiences of the townspeople.

The horrors El and Vee uncover are both magical and very realistic. That this was written before the world had learned of Gisele Pelicot and her fate just goes to show how well Machado knows the horrors of this world and how she incorporates them deftly into her quasi-mythical setting. Dani’s art underscores and enhances this in what feels like the most perfect fit between writer and illustrator one could hope for.

In short, it’s a strong series, very well contained in the six issues it spans, and yet leaving one hoping for more – while dreading at the same time what else they could come up with.

Summarizing: excellent.