E. M. Carroll

{{Infobox comics creator

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1983}}

| birth_place =London, Ontario

| image = Emily Carroll 2064948.jpg

| caption = Carroll in 2018

| nationality =

| spouse = Kate Craig

| website = {{URL|www.emcarroll.com}}

}}

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 two books of their own work, created comics for various comics anthologies, and provided illustrations for other works. Carroll has won several awards, including an Ignatz and two Eisners.

Career

File:Gone Home.png Gone Home.]]Carroll is educated as an animator. They began drawing comics in 2010.

= Webcomics =

Carroll drew and published their first comic on their website in May 2010.{{Cite web|last=Collins|first=Sean T.|date=2011-12-05|title=Emily Carroll's His Face All Red and Other Stories headed to boookstores via Simon & Schuster|url=https://www.cbr.com/emily-carrolls-his-face-all-red-and-other-stories-headed-to-boookstores-via-simon-schuster/|access-date=2020-11-05|website=Comic Book Resources|language=en-US}} Their third webcomic, His Face All Red, was released on October 31, 2010, and soon went viral.{{cite web|last1=Hubbard|first1=Taryn|date=2014|title=An interview with Emily Carroll: A Fairy-Tale Teller in the Digital Age|url=http://www.roommagazine.com/blog/interview-emily-carroll-fairy-tale-teller-digital-age|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141012103533/http://www.roommagazine.com/blog/interview-emily-carroll-fairy-tale-teller-digital-age|archive-date=2014-10-12|access-date=2020-11-06|website=Room Magazine}}{{cite web |title=emily carroll |url=http://sockefeller.livejournal.com/ |website=LiveJournal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101102094210/http://sockefeller.livejournal.com/ |archive-date=2010-11-02}}

Carroll has continued to publish short horror comics on their website. For their 2014 webcomic The Hole the Fox Did Make, Carroll chose a limited format to see how they could create unease in a limited space. Furthermore, they created this webcomic during breaks between other work, and the format facilitated drawing in "small chunks". Another webcomic, Margot's Room, presents the reader with a child's bedroom; clicking on objects in the room presents a part of the story. A poem at the start suggests a reading order, but the comic can be read in any order. Their 2016 webcomic Some Other Animal's Meat was adapted as "The Outside" for the Netflix horror anthology Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022).{{cite magazine | last=Berman | first=Judy | title=Guillermo del Toro Is Rolling Out a Netflix Horror Anthology. Here Are the 2 Must-Watch Episodes | magazine=Time | date=25 October 2022 | url=https://time.com/6224330/cabinet-of-curiosities-guillermo-del-toro-best-episodes/ | access-date=27 October 2022}}

{{As of|2022|February}}, the latest webcomic on their website is The Worthington, published in 2018.{{Cite web|last=Carroll|first=Emily|title=EM Carroll Art & Comics|url=https://emcarroll.com/|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210212222624/https://emcarroll.com/|archive-date=2021-02-12|access-date=2021-02-28|website=emcarroll.com}}

= 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."

In 2014, Carroll published Through the Woods, an anthology book of four original stories and an adaptation of His Face All Red for print format.{{cite web|last1=Dueben|first1=Alex|url=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=54998|website=Comic Book Resources|title=Emily Carroll Walks "Through the Woods"|date=2014-08-21}}{{cite web|last1=Woerner|first1=Meredith|title=Exclusive Horror Story From The Absolutely Chilling Through The Woods|url=http://io9.com/exclusive-horror-story-from-the-absolutely-chilling-thr-1606732634|website=io9|date=2014-07-17}} According to CBR, this was first announced in 2011 and was to be titled "His Face All Red and Other Stories". When talking about adapting a webcomic to print, Carroll said, "it was difficult... I think it works pretty good, though I think it might be more successful on the screen, to be honest. Because page turns became really important. With horror comics or any sort of suspense comics, if you have a set up for a scare on the left-hand page and the scare itself on the right-hand page the effect would disappear immediately." Through the Woods won Eisner,{{Cite web|last=Whitbrook|first=James|date=July 11, 2015|title=e Are Your Eisner 2015 Winners!|url=https://io9.gizmodo.com/e-are-your-eisner-2015-winners-1717201137|access-date=2020-11-05|website=io9|language=en-us}} Ignatz, and British Fantasy awards.

Carroll illustrated the 2015 graphic novel Baba Yaga's Assistant from Candlewick Press and a graphic novel adaptation of Speak.{{cite web|last1=Lodge|first1=Sally|date=2013-08-01|title='Speak' to Be Adapted as a Graphic Novel|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/58523-speak-to-be-adapted-as-a-graphic-novel.html|website=Publishers Weekly}} In 2019, they published When I Arrived at the Castle, a graphic novel which they wrote and illustrated.{{Cite web|last=Hennum|first=Shea|date=April 25, 2019|title=Reviews: When I Arrived at the Castle|url=http://www.tcj.com/reviews/when-i-arrived-at-the-castle/|access-date=2021-02-28|website=The Comics Journal|language=en-US}} In 2023, they published A Guest in the House, an adult horror graphic novel, through First Second Books.{{Cite web |title=A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250255525 |access-date=2023-09-09 |website=www.publishersweekly.com}}

= Illustrations for other works =

Carroll created illustrations for the 2013 indie video games Gone Home{{cite news|last=Smith|first=Zack|date=2014-09-10|title=Emily Carroll Takes Us THROUGH THE WOODS|work=Newsarama|url=http://www.newsarama.com/22092-spx-countdown-emily-carroll-takes-us-through-the-woods.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140913014459/http://www.newsarama.com/22092-spx-countdown-emily-carroll-takes-us-through-the-woods.html|archive-date=2014-09-13}} and The Yawhg.{{Cite web|url=http://www.themarysue.com/review-the-yawhg/|title=Rally Your Friends and Face The Yawhg, A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Game With Artwork by Emily Carroll|publisher=The Mary Sue|last=Chambers|first=Becky|date=2013-05-31}}

Reviews

Articles at CBR have described Carroll as a "webcomics wunderkind" and "a master of atmosphere and mood". They have called Carroll's webcomics "deliciously dark", praising their "vibrant colors, exquisite pacing, and genuinely creepy, genuinely bleak stories of murder and monstrousness". The magazine Room said of their work, "Beautiful, yet delicately sinister, fairy-tale comics evoke a feeling of isolation that twists into suspense as the reader clicks and scrolls through a horror story and that lingers in the mind long after the final panel." It also highlighted themes of isolation and guilt that appear throughout their work, as well as their preference for ambiguous endings. Paste Magazine called their comic The Hole the Fox Did Make one of the best webcomics of 2014.{{cite magazine|last=Jackson|first=Frannie|date=2014-12-17|title=The 20 Best Webcomics of 2014|url=http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/12/the-20-best-webcomics-of-2014.html|magazine=Paste Magazine}}

The critic Joe McCulloch said of Carroll's His Face All Red, “Even in the late ’80s, guys like Stephen Bissette were developing forums like Taboo which were specifically designed to counteract the traditionalism of comics horror … ‘His Face All Red’ seemed a break from that when it hit me. And it hit a lot of people.”

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. At no point does [Carroll] offer a neat resolution—the victimizer is condemned, of course, but the victim is not necessarily absolved completely." A review for Women Write About Comics called it a "dark, delicious fantasy" and said, "It’s the kind of story that needs multiple readings, not because it’s confusing, but because there's so much to unravel, so much thematic detail to sift through."{{Cite web|last=Brinks|first=Melissa|date=2019-05-23|title=When I Arrived at the Castle is a Dark, Delicious Fantasy|url=https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2019/05/when-i-arrived-at-the-castle-is-a-darkdelicious-fantasy/|access-date=2021-02-28|website=Women Write About Comics|language=en-US}} PopMatters rated it 8 out of 10, and said that "Carroll's style remains familiar: deceptively cartoonish figures that evoke a children's picture book despite the puddles of blood oozing into the gutters. Not that there are many gutters. Carroll prefers ever-changing layouts that only rarely provide traditional panels or grids."{{Cite web|last=Gavaler|first=Chris|date=2019-03-04|title=Pussycats, Lesbian Vampires, and the Blood-Splattered Erotica of Emily Carroll's 'When I Arrived at the Castle'|url=https://popmatters.com/when-i-arrived-emily-carroll-2630493715.html|access-date=2021-02-28|website=PopMatters|language=en-US}}

Awards

Carroll won two Joe Shuster Awards in the category "Outstanding Web Comics Creator", in 2011 and 2012 respectively.{{cite web|url=http://joeshusterawards.com/awards/about/2011-nominees/|publisher=The Joe Shuster Awards|title=2011 Nominees and Winners|date=2011-06-18}}{{cite web|last1=Boyd|first1=Kevin A.|title=The 2012 Joe Shuster Award winners|url=https://joeshusterawards.com/2012/09/15/8th-annual-joe-shuster-awards-winners-announced-in-montreal/|publisher=The Joe Shuster Awards|date=2012-09-15}}
The 2011 award recognised their works of the previous year, which were His Face All Red, Dream Journals, The Death of José Arcadio, Out the Door, and The Hare’s Bride. The 2012 award noted work Margot's Room.
At the 2014 Doug Wright Awards, Carroll won the Pigskin Peters Award, which "recognizes the best in experimental, non-traditional or avant-garde comics". They were also nominated for the Doug Wright Spotlight Award in 2012.{{cite web|url=http://www.dougwrightawards.com/past-winners/|publisher=Doug Wright Award|title=Past Winners}}
Carroll won two Eisner Awards in 2015: one in the "Best Graphic Album-Reprint" category for Through the Woods, and one in the "Best Short Story" category for When the Darkness Presses.
Carroll won an Ignatz Award in the "Outstanding Artist" category in 2015 for Through the Woods.{{cite web|url=http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/your_2015_ignatz_award_winners/|publisher=The Comics Reporter|title=Your 2015 Ignatz Award Winners!|date=2015-09-20}}
Carroll won the British Fantasy Award for "Best Comic/Graphic Novel" in 2015 for Through the Woods.{{cite web|last1=Alverson|first1=Brigid|title=Comics A.M. | Emily Carroll's 'Through the Woods' wins British Fantasy Award|url=http://www.cbr.com/comics-a-m-emily-carrolls-through-the-woods-wins-british-fantasy-award/|website=Comic Book Resources|date=2015-10-26}}

Personal life

Carroll was born in London, Ontario. Their parents divorced when Carroll was in high school. As of 2014, they are based in Stratford, Ontario. They are married to Kate Craig.{{Cite web|last=Randle|first=Chris|date=2014-08-07|title=Monsters at the Door|url=https://hazlitt.net/feature/monsters-door|access-date=2020-11-05|website=Hazlitt|language=en}}

Bibliography

Through the Woods. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books. 2014. {{ISBN|9781442465961}}, {{OCLC|885365003}}
"Ann by the Bed" (Frontier #6). San Francisco: Youth in Decline. 2014. {{OCLC|915825979}}
Marika McCoola; Emily Carroll (2015). Baba Yaga's Assistant. Somerville: Candlewick Press. {{ISBN|9780763669614}}, {{OCLC|1003143156}}.
"Beneath the Dead Oak Tree". Leeds: Shortbox. 2018. {{OCLC|1079067301}}
Laurie Halse Anderson; Emily Carroll (2018). Speak: The Graphic Novel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. {{ISBN|9780374300289}}, {{OCLC|974448720}}
When I Arrived at the Castle. Toronto: Koyama Press. 2019. {{ISBN|9781927668689}}, {{OCLC|1106371579}}
A Guest in the House. New York: First Second. 2023. {{ISBN|9781250255525}}, {{OCLC|1393169275}}