Devil’s Class Review: A Brutal Indie Horror Mystery

Mr. Smith takes a teaching job at a private school that feels wrong before he even reaches the front door. The students are too calm, the staff dodges basic questions, and everybody appears to know more about him than he knows about them. Written and illustrated by Eli Powell, with lettering by Micah Myers, Devil’s Class is an 80-page black-and-white horror mystery that starts with a slow crawl and eventually floors the gas straight into nightmare territory.

Powell builds the story around discomfort rather than cheap jump scares. Mr. Smith is already a mess when we meet him, smoking constantly, drinking too much, and carrying enough emotional baggage to clog the BQE. That makes him an interesting lead because he is not arriving as some clean-cut hero. He is damaged, irritated, and barely holding himself together before the students begin playing with his head.

The kids are easily the creepiest part of the book. They are intelligent, organized, sarcastic, and always watching. Sarah stands out as the most unsettling because she rarely needs to raise her voice. Her confidence tells you she knows exactly what is happening while Mr. Smith is still trying to figure out where the faculty bathroom is. The dialogue occasionally runs longer than it needs to, and a few students blend together, but the group works as one threatening presence.

Powell’s hand-drawn artwork gives the comic its identity. This thing is raw, scratchy, ugly in the best horror-comic sense, and packed with heavy black shadows. The school feels sterile at first, then gradually becomes more oppressive as Mr. Smith loses control. Faces distort, backgrounds disappear, and the pages become increasingly chaotic. Some anatomy and expressions shift from panel to panel, but the roughness fits the book’s damaged atmosphere far better than polished digital art ever could.

The pacing takes patience. The middle spends a little too much time repeating Mr. Smith’s suspicion while the staff continues feeding him vague answers. Still, once the truth begins surfacing, Devil’s Class stops playing nice. The final stretch delivers violence, grotesque imagery, ritualistic horror, and one seriously twisted creature design. Powell saves his wildest artwork for the payoff, and those pages hit hard.

Micah Myers’ lettering keeps the black-heavy pages readable, while repeated sounds like clicks, footsteps, and doors give the story a nervous rhythm. Those small details help turn Mr. Smith’s daily routine into something that feels less like a workweek and more like a trap closing around him.

Devil’s Class is grimy, unsettling indie horror with a strong visual personality and a mean final act. It could use tighter dialogue and a faster middle, but Powell sticks the landing and gives readers plenty of disturbing imagery for the $9.99 cover price. School is in session, fam, and this class is absolutely cooked.

CRUSADERS SCORE:
4/5

Creator, Writer, and Artist: Eli Powell
Letterer: Micah Myers
Publisher: Invader Comics

IN SHOPS:
9/23/2026