Julia Gfrörer

An NC-17 take on The Yellow Wallpaper?

Grieving the death of her fiancé, Eleanor Lutz finds herself living with her brother, caring for his invalid wife, losing her vision to cataracts, and doing the 19th-century version of a webcam sex show with the supernatural being inhabiting her mirror. Or maybe she's just having a mental health crisis?

There some shock value from the sex scenes and an extended scene that goes all in on the ol' injury-to-the-eye motif, but I didn't get much else from show more this dark and depressing dive into the abyss of human relations.

Trigger warning: sexual assault, incest, murder/suicide show less

I gotta be honest, I found a large chunk of this book to be useless, filled with short fantasy strips that are nonsensical, annoying, gross, or opaque. But there are a few longer stories in the middle of the book that make up for the dross.

First up, there is a duology -- "Flesh and Bone" and "Tooth and Claw" -- featuring a witch named Jadwiga who has some pretty harsh solutions for customers seeking her help for their love lives.

And then there is Edgar Allan Poe: The XXX Parody as Julia show more Gfrörer illustrates scripts by her husband, Sean T. Collins, that give "happy endings" (in the massage sense) to "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado." The Ushers bring down the house in "The Hideous Dropping Off of the Veil," and Fortunato does not go gentle into that good night in "In Pace Requiescat."

(Bear in mind, there is a lot a graphic sex throughout this book, a lot of it more horrific than sexy. And, my god, so much semen. Gallons! Not for the faint-hearted.)

"Frasier Has Left the Building" puts the cast of the television sitcom into a post-apocalyptic setting. I liked this since I always found Frasier annoying on Cheers and never bothered to watch his spin-off.

And I was amused by the silliness of "The 39 Ryan Goslings," all crammed onto one page.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents [All stories written and illustrated by Julia Gfrörer except where noted]: World Within the World -- Dark Age -- Pluto -- Palm Ash -- Hellmouth -- The Sheets Were All Be-Bled with the Blood -- What Little Is Known of the Voynich Manuscript -- Vanitas -- Four Thieves -- Frail Nature -- Against Nature -- The Chymical Wedding -- All Is Lost -- Hiders / Sean T. Collins, writer -- The Chasm -- Flesh and Bone -- Tooth and Claw -- Wryneck -- The Hideous Dropping Off of the Veil / Sean T. Collins, writer -- In Pace Requiescat / Sean T. Collins, writer -- Phosphorous -- Spirit Hand -- Counterweight -- Forgiveness -- Frasier Has Left the Building -- Café Nervosa -- Mundane Tasseomancy -- Not Funny -- Mundane Grimoire Field Guide to Common Apparitions -- Poor People Hell -- Too Dark to See -- The 39 Ryan Goslings -- Unclean -- Lilith in Exile -- River of Tears -- The Deep Ones / Sean T. Collins, writer -- Secular Games -- Tartarus -- Faintly show less

Intense and significant. I've been a fan since early days, and that may be partly because I'm a very morbid person but it's not just about the general vibe—Gfrörer has a very specific vision (both as an illustrator and as a writer—there's some really excellent dialogue here). I guess I could think of some points of comparison, like Häxan or The Witch in terms of film (although Gfrörer was doing this before Eggers), or maybe '90s Kathe Koja (but funnier) in non-visual fiction; there show more are plenty of differences from all of them, it's just hard to think of other things that even come close. Or I could just say that if you're at least partly a haunted gothic nerd with a pervy bent and a love of lines, then you ought to read this. show less

I actually read through this twice because it's so short. It's remarkably tight - in a short book like this it would be easy to "lose time" but Gfröer doesn't let any panel go to waste. Her style is well-suited to the subject matter as well, she finds beauty and terror in both the smallest of gestures and the most grotesque moments.