Cyanide Swamp II:
Reptile House

Cyanide Swamp II is out! This anthology is a bid to push into horror-adjacent territory by the viceroy of Reptile House. Featuring work by a range of artists from a variety of disciplines, all delivering sinister incantations.

This issue of the anthology is encased in a breathtakingly suffocating gore-intimacy world crafted by illustrator Christian Santiago, who adorns the front, back, and inside covers. I keep finding new things in it—maggots dripping off a sword, crawling from inside a demon creature.

Within, Cyanide Swamp II starts a crisp and clean fairytale guro piece from Tia Roxae, Rapunzel turns into a twisted, yonic creature, leading us further into the lair. Renata Rojo weaves intricate layers of shading into a dreamtime tapestry of fear and despair. Gabriel Mason Howell follows with a pained personal anecdote. Noel Freibert provides an upsetting, cartoon-gothic story of an entity drinking rainwater. Nick Bunch brings us an Arthurian tale of toony animal violence told on top of a meticulously rendered graphite castle landscape. Pris Genet tells the story of a mental patient’s collapse at the loss of a disfigured man she was caring for. Nicole Rodrigues presents a flowing tapestry of introspective emotional poetry and images exploring the shadow self. The anthology closes with Elliot Bech’s dungeon and funny-animal hijinx about graphic design.

56 pages of content on beautiful, offwhite paper with a metallic cover stock. Criminal value.