It’s SO HARD to rate comics because they don’t tell a full story but wow wow wow this was a crazy one lol. A beautiful erotic thriller with some wild horror in it (there’s a body horror bit that made my eyes SO WIDE) some taboo stuff, a LOT of questions… What happens when you have the power to influence people to act on your desires? How much should you trust the bizarre artistic father and daughter team that are both super into you? Are you messing with something dangerous to yourself and others? And will you care?

This was a great start to a story and I’m looking forward to tracking down the next two volumes to see where it leads. I loved the art style so much oh my god. Some of the panels are absolutely breathtaking. They have so much movement and life and color. And the horror wow the horror. Love it.

So glad I randomly discovered this at my library!

I love body horror a lot, splatterpunk, stuff like that. There were quite a few stories in here that I really liked and even a couple that managed to make me cringe and jokingly mutter “me when the body horror book contains body horror…” It’s always fun to figure out what stuff grosses you out more than others. I was surprised by what got me, honestly. Horror aside, there is some great psychological work in here as well! And social commentary! All around worth picking up and finding some faves. My personal faves were:

TONSILSTONESPUNKSPLATTER666! (Excellent writing style and quotable lines and GREAT splatterpunk vibes, great commentary on online culture as well and weaponized therapy speak)

HIGH MAINTENENCE (made me INCREDIBLY SAD, android fiction always does, real life AI pisses me off but fictional AI oppression makes me SOB and this one did it very well oh my god I feel so bad for him still 😭😭😭😭😭)

BROTHER MATERNITAS (body horror, gender horror, religious horror AND pregnancy horror all in a monastery????? Incredibly my jam. I’d read a whole book about this. )

THE SAME THING THAT HAPPENED TO SAM (conversion horror. Horrifying creeping dread and an insanely quotable last paragraph. Yuck yuck yuck.)

HYBRID

WHY WE KEEP EXPLODING (incredible commentary on misogyny and the silencing of women AND transmisogyny. Made me so angry. ALSO great body and cosmic horror in this one. Great ending also.)

FENCING CHESTPLATE (I think this was my favorite body horror honestly lol this was friggen NASTY and spiteful and a friggin MOOD OH MY GOD I FELT THIS IN MY SOUL)

SIMULACRUM ((this one was fucking haunting. This is also a topic that gets me right in the feels every time. The ending was …. God. Oh man. Yeah this one was great.)

STENCH (this is the one that made me cringe which is funny because it was probably the least gory? But a lot of the imagery was SPECIFICALLY what makes me go 😬😬😬 and we all know I love wellness and beauty horror as well)

And finally

THE PEARL DIVER which is unlike any of the others, featuring animals instead of people, and focusing on a story within a story that just had this whole… bleak and haunting feel to the whole experience, a great meditation on death.

It’s funny I didn’t even realise how MANY of these were such hits with me until I went to review this and went “god that’s most of the book lol.” And the others aren’t bad either they just weren’t my exact jam so I liked them less for various reasons.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND IF YOU LIKE THAT SORTA THING.