E. M. Carroll

E. M. Carroll (born 1983), previously credited as Emily Carroll, is a comics author from Ontario, Canada. Carroll started making comics in 2010, and their horror webcomic His Face All Red went viral around Halloween of 2010. Since then, Carroll has published three books, created comics for various comics anthologies, and provided illustrations for other works. Carroll has won several awards, including an Ignatz and two Eisners.

Career E. M. Carroll created illustrations for 2013 video game Gone Home.Carroll was educated as an animator. They began drawing comics in 2010. Their third webcomic, His Face All Red, was released on October 31, 2010, and went viral soon after.

Carroll has continued to publish short horror comics on their website. For their 2014 webcomic The Hole the Fox Did Make, Carroll attempted to create unease using a limited format. This webcomic was made during breaks between other work, and the format facilitated drawing in "small chunks".

, the latest webcomic on their website is A Pretty Place, published in 2023.

Print Carroll's work has been included in a number of comic anthologies, including Explorer: Mystery Boxes, Fairy Tale Comics, Creepy and The Witching Hour. According to CBR, it was first announced in 2011 and was to be titled His Face All Red and Other Stories. Ignatz, and British Fantasy awards.

Carroll illustrated the 2015 graphic novel Baba Yaga's Assistant from Candlewick Press and a 2018 graphic novel adaptation of Speak. In 2019, they published When I Arrived at the Castle, a graphic novel which they wrote and illustrated. In 2023, they published A Guest in the House, an adult horror graphic novel, through First Second Books.

Other media Carroll created illustrations for the 2013 indie video games Gone Home and The Yawhg.

Reception Articles at CBR have described Carroll as a "webcomics wunderkind"

Carroll's 2019 book, When I Arrived at the Castle, received positive reviews. The Comics Journal said that Carrol has an "incredible capacity to scare" and that "while there is a moral, Carroll deftly avoids moralizing." PopMatters rated it 8 out of 10.

Their 2023 release A Guest in the House was likewise positively received, earning a starred review from Booklist. The Comics Journal hailed the graphic novel as "a resounding success of horror in the medium of comics" that "goes beyond the many preconceived notions of the genre to explore identity, isolation, [and] what it means to belong." The Beat, calling it "one of the best comics of the year," observed a "strong plot with tonal and atmospheric visual choices so subtle, many readers might not know what the cartoonist is up to, not technically, but they sure will feel the effects." A more mixed review from NPR held that the book was "an impressively long and gorgeous volume that delivers an uncanny, wild ride" but that the "mechanics of its plot are a bit more unsteady." The book was listed as one of the "best Canadian comics of 2023" by the CBC and one of the "notable books of 2023" by The New York Times.

Awards