A delightfully gruesome story where one of the main characters shares my first name! Count me in for IDW’s “Blood Honey,” a darkly funny tale by writer and artist Sean Peacock.
Vanessa De La Mora and Edgar St. Claire are the main characters and they’re both respected, but mostly feared at Manderlay Preparatory High School. This universe is described as “Burton-esque,” which tracks because I was getting Netflix’s “Wednesday” meets “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” vibes the entire time.
Vanessa and Edgar are both irredeemable assholes who light everything on fire trying to literally kill their darlings (each other). They also inadvertently reignite passion back into their dead relationship. Both were warned by other characters that if they take this too far, they’ll end up taking everyone down with them. It’s all pretty dark and moody, but with a funny edge to it.
Their repeated efforts to kill each other and continued failure made for some incredible panels and splash pages that force you to look at every detail. But it also felt a bit like a sitcom with each attempt more ridiculous than the last. Kudos to Peacock here for doing double duty with an enjoyable story and eye-catching art that matches and sometimes exceeds the text.
But one particular conversation at the end I re-read over and over because of how desperately sad it was. Vanessa and Edgar are so tethered to the idea that one of them has to die in order for the other to be free, when the reality is they’ll never escape each other. Would death even truly be able to separate these two?
It’s a very good time, including side characters like Myrna Bergman, the best friend who is not-so-secretly in love with Vanessa, Penny Prescott, Vanessa’s rival cheerleader, plus Swashbuckler Orville Andalou, and nerdy pawn Clarence Trimble. Every character ends up falling into and getting harmed by the main couple’s shenanigans, some more brutally than others. Also, all the character names delightfully line up with exactly how you’d expect them to look.
This comic is great for anyone seeking something spooky, dark, and gothic that also happens to be set in an abnormally violent high school environment. It’s clever, and left me wanting to know more about Vanessa’s secrets and why she and Edgar just started collapsing after three years. “Blood Honey” is an IDW Dark original available on Sept. 3, 2025 at your local comic shop.
From IDW Publishing:
Young love always feels like life or death — and at this high school, it is.
In this Burton-esque macabre world, young lovers Vanessa De La Mora and Edgar St. Claire are at the top of the food chain at Manderlay Preparatory High School. They should be focusing on their upcoming crowning as homecoming queen and king, but lately the duo have grown weary and resentful of each other. While breaking up seems like the easy solution, they’ve both independently decided that all of their problems would be solved if the other was, well… dead.
Join up-and-coming writer/artist Sean Peacock in this exciting cat-and-cat game as two teens try to murder each other in increasingly elaborate fashion!