Lobdell, Northcott Swing for the Fences with Everglade Angels GN

The titular EVERGLADE ANGELS are a girls' baseball team whose trip to the championships leads them into the arms of masked killers deep in the Florida swamps.

It's 1997, and the Everglade Angels have clinched their trip to the playoffs, due in no small part to the outstanding performance of Gemma Walsh, daughter of team coach Abigail Walsh. Gemma's definitely the alpha among the team players, the main ones being Naomi, Lacey, Grace and Portia. The five girls decide to drive themselves to the championship game, and this is where their adventure takes a wrong turn -- literally.

Finding themselves lost in a small town, the girls get diverted to a party -- except there's no party there. Instead, there are masked men with weapons, and a strange chemical. They abduct Gemma, as the rest run off for their lives, only to return later to attempt a rescue.

To go any further would destroy the plot twists that make up this drive-in schlocker in graphic novel format. Suffice it to say, when you get the first twist, you can sort of predict the next ones, given what you've gleaned from the very first scenes.

EVERGLADE ANGELS was a crowdfunded project, and one which delivered a very handsome finished product. The binding and paper quality are impressive, and the design of the cover nicely mimics a VHS cassette case to further emphasize the B-movie feel of the whole thing. Scott Lobdell and Blake Northcott know how to keep readers entertained, and John Upchurch's interiors have a soft line style to them that will appeal to the female readership as much as to the male. It's something like Bernie Wrightson meets Reina Telgemeier, for a YA slasher horror graphic novel.

The story itself is about 50 pages -- slightly more than half of the number of pages in the entire book, which includes a partial movie screenplay, some sketches, and a preview of another title.

If you can get your hands on this, do so. You won't be disappointed.