Cryptid Club

by Sarah Andersen

The latest from New York Times bestselling, Goodread's Choice Award-winning, Eisner Award-nominated and Ringo Award-winning author Sarah Andersen is a delightful peek into the secret social lives of some of the world's most fascinating, monstrous, and mysterious creatures.

Do you hate social gatherings? Dodge cameras? Enjoy staying up just a little too late at night? You might have more in common with your local cryptid than you think! Enter the world of Cryptid Club, a look inside the adventures of elusive creatures ranging from Mothman to the Loch Ness Monster. This humorous new series celebrates the unique qualities that make cryptids so desperately sought after by mankind (to no avail). After all, it's what makes us different that also makes us beautiful.
 

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Humor, Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Paranormal

112 pages, Hardcover

First published September 23, 2021

About the author

Hello! I’m Sarah and I’m a cartoonist and illustrator. I graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014. My comics are semi-autobiographical and follow the adventures of myself, my friends, and my beloved pets.

Reviews

[destiny ♡ howling libraries · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've spent several years adoring Sarah Andersen, and most of my life adoring cryptids, so when Sarah started the cryptid comics on social media, I was hooked. I've been following these comics since they started, so I had already read most of these, but it didn't stop me from giggling all over again. My favorites are the Mothman ones — specifically the strips featuring Mothman losing his shit over bright lights — but honestly, they're all absolutely golden and I can't wait to buy a finished copy for my Sarah Andersen collection.



Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.

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[Rosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny collection of comics about cryptids.

Cryptids are creatures whose existence is either disputed or unsubstantiated. You would be aware of quite a few cryptids, such as the lochness monster, Yeti, aliens, sirens, ghosts, chupacabras and so on. In this collection, we see the other side of quite a few cryptids, and this side is mostly cute and funny.

Some of the strips were utterly adorable and surprisingly believable. Many were hilarious. A few were meh. Regardless of the humour level, one can’t deny the imaginativeness of the artist. Taking creatures of lore and putting them convincingly into the same book takes loads of creativity.

Many of the cryptids were easy for me to guess from the illustrations but I did need to Google a few. I discovered only later that a detailed glossary at the end of the book provides info on each cryptid that makes an appearance in the content. This would have worked better at the start (or there should have been a reference to the glossary at the beginning) because some of the jokes rely heavily on the creature’s identity, and if you aren’t aware of this, the jokes fall flat.

The artwork is in typical Sarah Anderson style. If you are a fan, you’ll love it.

This is not my favourite of Sarah’s works, but it is still a good one. Definitely recommended, especially if you are looking for a silly Halloween read that will create more giggles than gasps. You might not guffaw at every strip herein but you will certainly smile.

4.25 stars.

Top Tip: Read the glossary first.

My thanks to Andrews McMeel Publishing and Edelweiss+ for the DRC of “Cryptid Club”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.



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[Jenny Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freaking adorable.

[Jodie✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just have to give these books five stars because the puns are just too funny I love them

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 5 out of 5]

More like a compilation for the Halloween lovers, it's perfect for someone who's all Halloween inside.

I say, if you don't know the references the comic is making, I'm 90 percent sure you won't laugh your a off while reading this one.

Thank you, Andrews McMeel, for the advance reading copy.

Sarah is my queen. Whatever she comes out with, I am here for it.

This compilation is pure entertainment and I laughed the entire time (after forgetting what's laughing for jokes for an entire month or so 🤦). Thank you, Sarah, for always rescuing me with your work. It means a lot. Your sense of humour works like charm.

Love the cute, dark artwork. Already waiting for the next book!

[HorrorBabe911 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick light read. Illustrations really pop! Loved it

A funny creative insight at the ordinary lives of the few famous monsters/creatures we fear around the world.

My fav were the aliens and Nessie lol

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've not always been the greatest fan of Andersen's work - it tends to be a bit too samey visually, for me, and a lot of the jokes have the same problem, jokingly.

But this made me laugh, it's just a good bit of fun. The silliness is a strong juxtaposition to the supposed scariness of the creatures. Even the art becomes more appealing because of the cryptids.

Bonus points for including a bestiary of sorts in the back, for old people like myself who had never heard of nightcrawlers.

(Picked up an ARC through Edelweiss)

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarah Andersen takes a break from making fun of herself in Sarah's Scribbles to making fun of monsters . . . just in time for Halloween! The usual suspects -- Bigfoot, vampires, aliens, lake monsters, chupacabras, kraken -- are joined with some more modern beasties like Slender Man, Fresno Nightcrawlers, and Siren Head.

The humor in the single page cartoons is mostly gentle and tame despite all the horror figures, but a couple strips probably keep it from passing as purely all ages. I'd have preferred something a bit edgier myself, but I'm content with the chuckles provided.

[Ellen Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

2024: I can't believe I've never shared this with y'all. Internet book friends, meet Mothman!



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2022:I really needed this dose of spooky cuteness today.



Thanks to Edelweiss and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the drc!

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

cute as heck!! this comic collection very short and occasionally repetitious, but cryptids really deserve a chance to be cute and light and easy.

i loved the glossary in the back, because there were a couple of cryptids i actually wasn't familiar with (the fresno nightcrawlers and siren heads are relatively new to cryptid culture). definitely a fun read... it makes me crave more cryptid stories.

[Noorj · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore this author's graphic books.

[Stay Fetters · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Have you heard the legend of Mothman? He only appears to humans before a disaster. Woah!…
These bangs are gonna be so cute!
*Mothman appears*"

Sarah Anderson quickly stole my heart after I finished reading Fangs. That was one of the best graphic novels that I have ever read and I’m waiting for Sarah to release a second one featuring our mismatched lovable pair.

Cryptids are such magical beings and they all really know how to lighten the mood. Lately, Mothman has been capturing my dreams and haunting all of us with his beauty. I swear that Sarah wrote this book for me because it combined all the favorites in one collection.

This collection was super adorable and hilarious. She took things that normally scare others and put a fun twist on them. It was cute and I loved it. Now I just need more of these cute little crytids as they bond, scare others, and show off their backsides in those Tik Tok leggings.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute and fun comic collection. I enjoyed the art style, the creatures featured (including the loch ness monster, ghosts, mothman, and more), and the humor throughout.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me access to this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Steph ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was hilarious. Bloody brilliant. "it has pockets" had me laughing out loud.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Sarah Andersen! I love the style of her comics, and I love the way her weird little brain works. This comic about all those legendary creatures, chatting, sharing stories, falling in love, pranking humans . . . darling. The aliens and cows comics were especially funny (to me anyway).

[Léa · Rating 3 out of 5]

the puns! the spooky vibes!

[Peter Derk · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delight! Although I feel bad for poor Bigfoot.
You know what I don't like? That new cryptids, like Slenderman, have a known creator. That's some bullshit.
If you create a cryptid that catches on, do the world a favor and don't tell anyone. It's a gift to the world.
I guess this is my way of saying that I DEFINITELY didn't create SnakePushkin, an ape-like creature that perfectly combines the attributes of Snake Plissken and Alexander Pushkin. It's a weird combo, but when pushkin comes to shovekin, it all works out.

[Ghoul Von Horror · Rating 5 out of 5]

TW: Language, drinking, anxiety, depression, stress, mental health

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Do you hate social gatherings? Dodge cameras? Enjoy staying up just a little too late at night? You might have more in common with your local cryptid than you think. Enter the world of Cryptid Club, a look inside the adventures of elusive creatures ranging from Mothman to the Loch Ness Monster. This series celebrates the unique qualities that make cryptids so desperately sought after by mankind (to no avail). After all, it's what makes us different that also makes us beautiful.
Release Date: September 23rd, 2021
Genre: Horror
Pages: 100
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

What I Liked:
1. The images were beautiful
2. The book is beautiful
3. The jokes are so cute
4. Short
5. The glossery at the end

What I Didn't Like:
1. Nothing

Overall Thoughts:
I've enjoyed a few other books from Sarah Andersen and I've enjoyed them all. The way that she writes these comics and the characters in them is relatable and hilarious. The fact that I could find this book relatable and it's about mythical creatures is amazing.

I absolutely thought this book was gorgeous. It has a glow in the dark cover and has pink edges. I also love that there was a glossary at the back of the book so if there were some mythical creatures you knew nothing about you could just read about them. The times when it was like Slender Man it would even tell you where the legend came from. That was a really nice touch for someone who maybe didn't know all the mythical creatures.

Final Thoughts:
As always I will continue to read this author's books and I will continue to laugh at the authors jokes.

IG | Blog

[Sara Jovanovic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Sarah Andersen's comic collections, and while I do think that this was a bit weak, especially compared to her widely popular Sarah's Scribbles series, it was still a genuinely enjoyable read. Cryptid club features well known monsters such as Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, Slenderman, ghosts, aliens, and many others in typical social situations, which explain why they usually tend to stay away from humans. Illustrations were simplistic, but mixed with Andersen's signature humor, they provide a funny read that shines a light on the unknown side of these's monsters daily life. It was cute, but I still felt like something was missing. However, whatever it was, I was reminded why I appreciate Sarah's work and why I always look forward to her new collection.

Thanks to the Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing me with eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Maddie]

Okay this is an absolutely PRECIOUS book of comics about cryptid creatures. I teared up they are so silly and cute. Got it as a white elephant exchange and could not be more pleased. It’ll be on my coffee table for the rest of my life if you wanna come read it

[Rachelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comic, Cryptid cuteness overload!!! Such a fun and adorable little book of awesomeness! 🖤

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

review to come!

[Melki · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I appreciate the diversity of the cryptids represented here, I cracked a smile maybe . . . twice?

Laughs were as rare as a bunyip in Antarctica.

[Suppi · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was cute and wholesome and made me happy :))

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a massive fan of Sarah's Scribbles who's also into all things horror, myth, and monsters, I was excited when this new cryptids series was announced during the pandemic. It is quite the departure from her main comics, but at the same time it deals with many of the same themes—social anxiety and shyness, for instance—except that elusive creatures are the protagonists, instead of a millennial. After all, you could argue that the reason we only have blurry evidence of these cryptids' existence is because they, too, dislike social gatherings and having their picture taken. Pretty relatable.

The creatures in Cryptid Club range from the good old classics from antiquity, like sirens and ghosts, to the mid-1900's newcomers, such as Bigfoot, aliens, and Nessie, but much more recent urban legends like Slenderman and the Fresno Nightcrawlers are members too—and they are all adorable.

A few of these fell flat for me, so on the whole I didn't enjoy the book as much as any given Sarah's Scribbles collection, but I still found a lot of them quite amusing—for instance, the thought of Mothman being attracted by a child's nightlight just tickles me, or the idea of a poltergeist being nothing but a ghost playing fetch with his ghost dog. There was one non-PG joke referencing alien anal probing that came out of left-field and made me laugh out loud, but other than that, it's child-friendly, and doesn't really require any background knowledge about the cryptids—but just in case, there's a glossary at the end.

I hadn't kept up with these online, so the majority was new to me, and enough of them made me chuckle for the collection to be worthwhile. They're charming, and the minimalist drawing style is very similar to Sarah's Scribbles, except that these are fully colored. She must've gotten a taste for writing monster tropes while working on Fangs, and probably didn't want to limit herself to vampires and werewolves (two creatures conspicuously missing from the cryptid club). If you like Sarah's other work, you can't go wrong with this—it's like her Scribbles and Fangs decided to meet in the middle. I read it in one sitting during a slow work afternoon, and it brightened my day like all her comics do!

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Note: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Lexie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been following Sarah Andersen on Instagram for quite some time, so I've seen a small handful of these already, but I was absolutely delighted to find out she was releasing an entire collection of her Cryptid comics. I loved her previous release, Fangs, and while this is very different stylistically, I thought it had a very similar cute, cozy, spooky vibe that is perfect for the Halloween season.

Cryptid Club is a collection of comics that feature, you guessed it, Cryptids! Andersen turns popular spooky figures like Bigfoot, Nessie, and Mothman on their heads and injects them with heaps of charm. She even convinced me to find Slenderman endearing, which I would have thought was impossible just an hour ago.

Each comic is relatively contained to a 4-panel story, but you can definitely see the threads of the relationships these creatures have to one another play out throughout the whole collection. Watching them date, babysit, and hang out with one another was absolutely delightful.

Overall, I thought Cryptid Club was cute, charming, and funny, which is exactly what I expect when I pick up a Sarah Andersen comic. I highly recommend!

[Rae | The Finer Things Club CA · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a longtime fan of artist Sarah Andersen, so I was happy to see a collection of her latest webcomics Cryptid Club. This series features funny scenes starring well-known mysterious creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Slender Man, ghosts, and extraterrestrials. I prefer her original Sarah’s Scribbles work, but I still found these strips amusing and charming. This would make a perfect gift for someone who is in interested in cryptozoology and the paranormal, adores cute things, and has a silly sense of humor.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Adam M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was ready to get salty about this, but it was cuter than I gave it credit for. Sarah Andersen brings her gentle, whimsical sense of humor to a group of cryptids and it's silly if not laugh-out-loud. There were several here I enjoyed for the twist she put on it. - Very quick, fun and light, nice palate cleanse

[Leah]

I have very easy access to maddie's coffee table! mothman <33

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've missed Sarah Anderson's comics and enjoyed reading this, but to be honest I loved Sara's scribbles a lot more.
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