Nightmare Hunter #1 - (Maxwell Dark) by Brady Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

Twelve-year-old Maxwell, who can enter and battle other kids' nightmares, has helped countless dreamers--until he meets Sid, whose increasingly eerie and inescapable nightmares make Maxwell question if he's trapped in one himself.

Book Synopsis

Maxwell Dark is on a mission to help kids hunt down and defeat the nightmares haunting them in this chilling horror graphic novel filled with monsters and mayhem.

A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

I'm Maxwell. Please don't call me Max. I have a gift that I was born with, although most of the time it feels like a curse.

That gift--or curse--allows twelve-year-old Maxwell to sense, experience, and enter other kids' nightmares. He drifts from town to town, drawn by the darkest dreams, till he can help people defeat whatever is truly haunting them. With seventy-three clients and counting, he's seen every monster there is to face.

Or so he thinks, until he meets Sid. Sid's dreams start off as typical nightmare fare, but soon they get weirder. Creepier. Impossible to ignore. As Maxwell goes deeper and deeper into Sid's nightmares, he starts to realize he may be trapped in one of his very own...

Review Quotes

"An artistic riot of monsters establishes a unique universe in this spooky series starter."--Kirkus

"Smith's aesthetic and characterization has a 1990s cartoon feel, and his full-page renderings of nightmare monsters are delightfully detailed. Readers will root for Maxwell and Sid as they team up to defeat the ultimate ghoul--blood-chilling Splithead--and escape the ­confines of her mind in one piece. VERDICT: A dark and fun foray into the horror comedy genre for young graphic novel readers."--School Library Journal

"Smith (Bug Sandwich) deploys stylized cartooning rendered in psychedelic color to depict human characters (portrayed with varying skin tones) dwarfed by multi-eyed monsters, tentacled terrors, and snotty, toothy, creepy cryptids, while thick line art reinforces the frenetic feeling of entrapment in a strange and horrific place. Each chapter of this promising graphic novel series launch boasts thrills and humor that's sure to impel readers into the next volume."--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Brady Smith (bradysmith.com), an illustrator and fine artist, also wrote and illustrated the graphic novels Louie and Bear in the Land of Anything Goes and Louie and Bear Bite Back as well as the picture books You're Missing It! (with his wife, Tiffani Thiessen), I'm Getting a Shark!, and Bug Sandwich. He has exhibited his paintings in a number of galleries in Los Angeles, New York City, and Houston. He has his own illustration and design company, Brady Smith Creative. Also an actor and writer, he has appeared in and written numerous TV shows and movies. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, two children, three dogs, eight chickens, and one fish named Goldie Han Solo.