Loving, Ohio

This understated horror comic by Erman (Mariko Between Worlds) and artist Beck (Verse) finds terror in teenage suburban ennui. Sloane and her friends are high schoolers in what appears to be a typical Midwestern town. It gradually becomes clear, however, that the town of Loving is run by the Chorus, a new-agey cult whose beliefs range from past-life regression to the dangers of fluoride. The kids regard their parents’ fanaticism with adolescent skepticism: “All religions are cults. Ours is just a little dumber than the rest,” Sloane says. But after her boyfriend dies by suicide, she digs deeper. The Chorus, she finds, may be behind the disappearances of local teens—and the arrival of a twisty-limbed supernatural figure called “the man in the afternoon.” The trope of surrealistic nightmares lurking under the surface of a small town brings to mind the work of Charles Burns, but Beck verges from that template with crisp art, tinted in muted palettes, that emphasizes the mundane side of Loving, into which monstrosity unpredictably erupts. The story avoids tidy answers to its mysteries, allowing fear to lurk in unresolved questions. Fans of cerebral horror should take note. (Aug.)