DEAD BY DAYLIGHT: THE HILLBILLY #1 / Script and Dialogue by DEREK FRIDOLFS / Art by DEAN KOTZ / Colors by ALLISON HU / Letters by ANDWORLD DESIGN / Designs by OZ BROWNE / Published by TITAN COMICS

Officer Darnell Hollis is a rookie cop out to impress. His chance comes during a hot pursuit of a violent offender, during which he shoots and kills a civilian’s guard-dog after his quarry jumps the wrong fence. Rather than being upset, the Chief is impressed and insists on taking Hollis out for a night on the town with other former cops and soldiers with whom he’s formed a select club.

Of course membership in the club isn’t as simple as one daring act in the line of duty. There’s also a hazing ritual involving the prize hog farm outside of town and kissing a pig. It is then that Hollis discovers a frightening secret behind the farm and it’s unclear just how far the secret goes…

I’ve never played Dead by Daylight, not being much for survivor horror games. I am familiar with it, however, given the game has become successful enough to warrant multiple tie-ins to virtually every major horror movie franchise and crossovers with other games like Tomb Raider and Alan Wake. As such, I went into this comic relatively blind. Unfortunately, there’s not much that seems to tie into the game or anything beyond a basic horror story.

The script by Derek Fridolfs does a fair job of establishing the stakes. However, the characters are strictly stock. Our main character, Officer Hollis, gets little definition beyond being a decent man with a family who would rather spend an evening with them than drinking in a strange bar. The rest of the cast are just jerks, save for a K-9 officer named Janice who comforts Hollis over his experiences shooting a dog. We see very little of the titular monster, much less the origin story promised in the promotional blurbs for this first issue.

The artwork is similarly messy, literally and figuratively. Dean Kotz does a fair job depicting the horrific images the script demands. However, the horror is largely rendered inert by the colors of Allison Hu. Every color choice seems off-model, from the dark yellow of the police uniforms to the purple used for Hollis’ skin in the night scenes. There are similar issues with the lettering, with odd colors offsetting the action balloons at certain points.

Perhaps Dead by Daylight: The Hillbilly will hold appeal to fans of the games. As a fan of horror comics, however, it failed to grip me. The story and characters are generic and the artwork off-putting due to the odd color choices. Maybe the whole story will scan better as a TP, but I see no reason to check out the second issue.

Dead by Daylight: The Hillbilly #1 arrives in comic shops on April 8, 2026.