Yeah, we’re down with The Sickness

THIS ADVANCE REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE.

by Kate Kowalski. Let’s say fear itself is the only thing we need to fear. It is, after all, an unwavering force that shapes human patterns and world events each day. Fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of the different — fear in any form warps and disrupts a mind, a neighborhood, a society. In The Sickness, we see the consequences of a human mind corrupted and addled by primeval fear. Its first issue is a weaving of two horrific tales, distinct yet connected by mysterious and violent circumstances, driven by wildly fearful individuals.

We open in 1945 with a group of teenage boys enjoying malts at the local diner, planning how they’ll win the fishing contest and score rides in their friends’ fixed-up coupe. One fellow’s a bit preoccupied, though, as the places and faces around him distort into disturbing contortions. We cut to 1955 in the aftermath of a horrific double homicide and attempted mass murder spurred on by mental distress and grotesque hallucinations tormenting a burdened mother for weeks prior.

As it stands, we’re left to consider what could cause this strange sort of illness. A study on syphilis passes through the panels, and we are delivered a meditation on rabies in those floating square boxes of internal monologue. It’s a terrifying thought: something as simple as a bacterial or viral infection could uproot rational thought and turn the infected into a crazed murderer. Other clues and coincidences, too many, point to another more supernatural explanation meant for future issues.

So we’re not quite sure entirely what we’re looking at yet. Chapter One of The Sickness is the first snag in a tapestry promising to unravel wildly in the coming months. What we can see and feel for certain is a dark, grisly undercurrent in this story’s picture-perfect post-WWII suburbia. Something not so great lurks in the backyards of The Greatest Generation. The Sickness is both an anxiety-driven horror tale and a clapback to the nostalgically American narratives dominating airwaves for the last eight or so years.

Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha bring us into this growing nightmare, guiding us from moment to moment, not dwelling in any one instant for too long. The transitions they achieve in this chapter are, put simply, cinematic. It’s crazy how masterfully they apply the sense of sound to this non-aural medium; one scene transition gives the reader a sense of fading diegetic music, which moves the events of the issue from Act One to Act Two via song. Cha states in an interview with ComicsXF, “Part of what I love about the craft of comics is [the] manipulation of time and the two-way road between the artist and the reader. What you put down as an artist won’t ever be interpreted exactly the way you want it.” Of course, she’s right — that’s the beauty of the comic as a form — but Cha and Nadler have mastered their strengths, giving the reader just enough to crank this story along at their careful, deliberate pace.

It’s the dialogue, the pacing, and the small reveals that establish the slow-brewing terror of The Sickness. Cha’s heavily etched faces and cramped, detailed backgrounds give the story a sense of unease and distress. Her style is unique — thick cross-hatching and a smattering of Ben Day dots for shade — precise in some moments and consciously obfuscating in others. Cha puts her set dressing detail to work, too: we learn what we can about these characters from perfectly-arranged records in one room and desktops piled high with books in another. And the artistic choice to omit color gives Cha’s detail its most profound impact. (First glance — are those green beans or a pile of cigarette butts on that plate of hospital food?) Cha’s artwork conjures an ominous feeling of dread.

“[The Sickness] is Stephen King’s It meets Junji Ito’s Uzumaki,” Nadler posted on Reddit last month, promising potential readers good times to come. The series is currently set to span over 16 issues, an epic length for a story about decay and deterioration underneath that tired, re-written American dream, space enough to ruminate on the devastating effects that come from letting fear take over any shred of reason we may still possess. But it will also be the mystery of The Sickness that looms over its reading; this debut leaves its reader to speculate its meaning and wonder at its horrors.

8.5 out of 10

The Sickness #1 hits comic shops on June 14. For more information, click this.

Uncivilized Books / $6.00
Written by Lonnie Nadler.
Illustrated by Jenna Cha.

Check out this 7-page preview of The Sickness #1, courtesy of Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha: