Creepy Scarlett is a dead girl who lives in a graveyard and can only leave it during Halloween. After several adventures, writer Graeme Buchan took us back to the beginning and told Scarlett’s origin story and has now collected both parts of “As White As Snow” and the first issue “Emerald of Lucifer” together in Creepy Scarlett Book One.

I reviewed the first two issues some time ago. My review of Issue #1, Creepy Scarlett & The Emerald of Lucifer, can be found here, and my review of Issue #2, Creepy Scarlett: As White As Snow – Part One, can be found here.

So, what’s different about Book One? For one, it goes back and adds several new scenes and two brand new villains. Trixie Von, the circus performer, is scheduled to go toe-to-toe with Scarlett in Issue #4. Trixie is a different kind of crazy from Scarlett, but crazy nonetheless, happy to use violence and a giant, multicolored lollipop to get her way as sort of an eccentric mercenary for hire. The other villain is Dr. Lutwidge, sporting the long, beak-plague mask from history, who serves as Vincent and Red Sun’s crazed doctor and from all hints is the one whose experiments might be responsible for making Scarlett immortal and as scatterbrained as she is.

These additional scenes don’t add a ton of extra detail to the overall story, but they’re some nice additional pages that further expand the world beyond the core cast and further set up later issues. The one adjustment I was not a fan of was the moving of the final scenes from Issue #3 to the start of the “As White As Snow” arc, which leaves an ending focusing on a minor character that lacks real punch.

As for Issue #3 itself, wow was “As White As Snow” a great arc. This story does a lot to expand upon the world of Creepy Scarlett, not only explaining our candy-obsessed heroine but adding more detail to Red Sun, the quest, and Scarlett’s larger purpose. This issue plays with its readers’ expectations. We all know Scarlett dies somehow and at some point, but the exact how and why of it have been a mystery that Buchan is able to play experimentally with.

While a more serious story for the series, Issue #3 tosses in a lot of offbeat moments, taking away the “cool” from these epic battles of good and evil that I found delightful. Best of all, Issue #3 brings in new humor, hitting every note but the candy obsession and showing that Creepy Scarlett can grow and adapt from its original premise. Special shout out to the Red Sun Knights for making this issue so much fun!

Issue #3 also continues the black-and-white art style with splashes of color. Having seen the fully colored “Emerald of Lucifer”issue again in this book, this style of art added a lot to my enjoyment of the “As White As Snow” arc. It gives it a noir and flashback sort of feel. The color draws the eyes to key elements and adds to the horror of additions like splashes of blood and even makes the completely colorless characters rather unique in their own way.

Creepy Scarlett Book One can be purchased over at Drive Thru Comics for $1.99 which is an unbelievable deal for a good chunk of comic.

Four Angry Mr. Teds out of Five