Dreadful Ed and Mary Scary Review: Awesome

Many kids and even adults feel that they don’t belong. Sometimes these people think that the reason they don’t fit in is that maybe they were switched at birth. Comic writer Andrew Cosby decided to take this one step further and add monsters to a children’s comic called “Dreadful Ed and Mary Scar” with artist Trot Nixey.   

In the monster world of Nocturnia Lenore, the wife of the Boogyman is pregnant with another girl even though Boogy wants a boy. So she comes up with a plan to swap her daughter with a human boy and raise them like their own. Because of this swap, both kids have a hard time fitting in and now, after meeting, both kids have to help each other out to survive in their worlds.   

It’s a simple switched at birth story that, for once, doesn’t go where it usually goes. Looking at it as a kid’s book, it is a story some kids will get it a kick out of. What better way of teaching about one’s identity than with monsters? In fact, many weird kids view themselves as monsters that are living in the human world because they are different than everyone.   

Both Ed and Mary are interesting characters. Here we have a human trying his best to live with monsters but has troubles with it and Mary is a monster living with humans and having a hard time with that. It’s an idea that kids would feel at home with. Of course, Nocturnia sounds like an amazing place and there is a lot that can be explored here. Cosby should consider maybe making more comics that take place in Nocturnia that don’t necessarily feature Ed and Mary. 

The way the comic is formatted is one page is a short poem that tells the story and the next page is a huge illustration. These illustrations are absolutely amazing. The monster designs have that right blend of scary and fascinating that won’t give kids nightmares. Not to mention the backgrounds are creative, making Nocturnia looks like an actual place than just a setting in a comic. These illustrations aren’t small scale; many of them look like these grand paintings that you’d see in a kid’s horror show. “Dreadful Ed and Mary Scary” is a great kid’s comic that has a plot that many kids would love along with great illustrations that are worth looking like for a while.