The Sickness

Two characters separated by a decade share the same mysterious affliction in this skin-crawling horror comic. Collaborators Nadler and Cha (Black Stars Above) conjure a hostile America circa 1945, where Daniel, a lonely Jewish teenager in Stillwater, Minn., spends most of his time getting ragged on by his friends when he’s not having terrifying hallucinations. His story is interleaved with that of George, a Black doctor in 1955 Lakewood, Co., who is trying to understand what drove a woman who had similar hallucinations to murder her family. Daniel’s story line is the most outwardly disturbing of the two—thanks to his visions of melting faces, ghoulish apparitions, and everyday objects turning into grotesque monsters—but his cycling through the same obsessions provides little dramatic momentum. George’s research into other cases of murders and suicides carried out by people experiencing visions is more directed, and unsettling, with the suggestion of an epidemic of madness spreading across America. The theme of postwar alienation and prejudice is somewhat underdeveloped but has potential to add layers to the ongoing series. The finely etched artwork, recalling Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, lends to the sense of claustrophobia—and is especially effective in the eerie moments when Daniel’s and George’s lives appear to be overlapping. It’s a surefire prescription for disturbing one’s sleep. (June)