“We had this pitch going for three years,” Lonnie Nadler tells me, his voice a mix of pride in the work and dissatisfaction with the comics industry writ large. “And the only reason it’s taken us this long is because we couldn’t find a publisher who would be willing to commit to a series this long.”
Nadler has long made his feelings on the current comics market known. In a 2021 opinion piece for ComicsXF, he said, “The hard truth is that for low to mid level creators like myself, serialization is less and less of an option. […] We cannot pitch a 50-issue or even 10-issue series because we don’t come with the guarantee of bringing in bank. […] While many cite this as a new Golden Age for creator owned comics, most books hardly ever get the chance to flourish, to build an audience.”
So when he and Jenna Cha announced The Sickness, a 16-issue, black and white horror book from a boutique comics publishing house known more for literary comics by the likes of Craig Thompson and Noah Van Sciver than folks who used to write Cable, well, I took notice.
I have to believe, for myself, that people do want this kind of comic.
Lonnie Nadler
“We didn’t take it everywhere, but we took it to places we thought would like it,” he says of the intertwined narrative poking at the dark underbelly of America’s post-World War II suburban glory. “A lot of places said, ‘Yes, we love this, but can you make it five issues,’ right?”
Five issues. One hundred pages. The perceived perfect delivery vehicle to sell an IP option to Hollywood. It prioritizes efficiency over the lingering, deliberate pacing used in books like The Nice House on the Lake and films like Midsommar. This macro-trend makes you wonder if comics publishers’ priorities are really on the comics.
We are far from the Vertigo heyday or even the creator-owned revival of a decade ago. There’s a conservative air to most of the publishing industry as the fear of a recession looms after the pandemic-year highs. Horror comics, however, have proven to be commercially resilient and flourishing creatively, and Jenna and Lonnie have been at the forefront of that movement.
“We’re committed to trying to make [The Sickness] a success both artistically and in the market, and we just hope people will embrace it,” Nadler says. “I’m scared that they won’t because it’s long and bizarre and black and white, but I have to believe, for myself, that people do want this kind of comic.”
The two’s last book, Black Stars Above, was longlisted for the 2020 Bram Stoker Awards, and the duo were involved in the acclaimed Razorblades: The Horror Magazine. More than most creators in the space, they understand how to make horror work in comics.
“Part of what I love about the craft of comics,” Cha says, “is the attempt of 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.”
Knowing that, the two have focused, not on scaring the reader in a solitary moment, but on instilling a deep sense of fear and horror.
“A lot of people have a tendency to try to emulate techniques that work in cinema,” says Nadler, who has also written and directed films. “And so they do things like page-turn reveals, the equivalent of a hard cut. I do not believe that those things work in comics, and I don’t know that they’ve ever really worked.”
Cha counters, highlighting the work of Junji Itō: “Sometimes his page-turn scares come out of nowhere, sometimes it comes off as like a comedy beat, sometimes it’s hugely built up.”
The two align, however, on the idea that tone is more important than shock in horror comics.
“He sets the ground work so well and when you’re reading his books, you surrender to whatever is going to happen,” Cha continues.
That idea of surrender is central to The Sickness.
While it was conceived before the COVID-19 pandemic, the team had to surrender to the coincidence.
What isn’t scary about the fucking social conventions of the ‘50s?
Jenna Cha
Nadler recalls “It was almost affirming, in a disturbing way, the idea that pandemic and general sickness in all of its meanings, metaphorical and literal, are things that have existed for a long, long time. What the actual COVID pandemic proved to us is that people still choose to remain ignorant of these things.”
It brings to mind artist Keith Haring’s famous poster intended to raise awareness of the AIDS crisis, “Ignorance = Fear.”
What we don’t understand, we fear. In narratives, creators can use asymmetry of information to set a tone of dread. The reader understands the danger, but the fictional subject remains ignorant of the danger they are in. Conversely, withhold key truths from the reader and the unknown shrouds the proceedings in terror. It’s a technique Cha and Nadler use through the first issue of The Sickness, relying on the asymmetric ignorance to develop the horror they need. Do the characters see what we see? Do they understand the disease festering in their community? Can they stop it before it’s too late?
“America and horror are synonymous,” says the Canadian Nadler. For The Sickness, Nadler and Cha have tapped into the heights of American exceptionalism, in both the afterglow of their christening as a superpower post-WWII and the Rockwellian Americana of the 1950s.
“What isn’t scary about the fucking social conventions of the ‘50s,” Cha says, “nuclear tension and McCarthyism? Americana is such a veneer, and there’s such a picturesque quality to how we view old America.”
The two use the inversion of our popular perception of the Greatest Generation to push The Sickness into a world of unease. Something is lurking beneath the malt shops and fresh cut suburban lawns. Nadler describes it as “sublime nostalgia,” commenting that the contrast of picture perfect imagery and gruesome body horror allows the art to deliver something unique.
The visual language of The Sickness is unique in this market. “This is a risk for the publisher [Uncivilized Books]. It is a risk for us to be doing a series this long in black and white.” And while Nadler is right in his assessment, it’s also shameful that in a world where manga has been a dominant player in the book market for decades, the high-contrast, maximalist art Cha puts out is seen as a risk. In the direct market, there’s little on the stands that looks like The Sickness.
“I went to art school for comics,” Cha recalls with a chuckle, “and I was always told by my teachers to calm the fuck down on the hatching and details.” Open any page of The Sickness and it’s clear this wasn’t a lesson Cha took to heart. There are washes and halftones, curio cabinets filled, wallpaper and wood grain. Combine that with a predilection for tight grids, and you have a beautiful art piece that nearly suffocates you with atmosphere.
Cha describes her process, saying “I can only ever imagine things in stark gray tones and harsh blacks and a lot of negative space and stuff.” Executing this title in black and white was the only natural choice. It leans into the artist’s habit of drowning the page in detail and complements Nadler’s formalist tendencies.
By the end of our conversation, I bring up a comparison, one that I wanted to avoid but became increasingly difficult to ignore. “You said the F.H. word!” Cha says with the giddy tease you see between partners.
“From Hell,” Nadler elaborates, “is the best comic that’s ever been made.” The influence of Eddie Campbell and Alan Moore’s Jack the Ripper classic is evident in The Sickness. “I’m unabashed about my admiration for that book. Of course it would leak into something that we’re doing that’s history and horror. You wear your influences on your sleeve for better or worse, subconsciously or consciously.”
Their desire is to accept the challenges of a book like From Hell, to push the medium of comics further. “Understanding formalism in the same fashion as From Hell brought really key sequences of The Sickness to a level that I couldn’t have ever imagined myself,” Cha boasts. That same ambition brought by Campbell and Moore is ventured by Cha and Nadler. Whether they will achieve those same artistic heights is still to be seen.
Like From Hell’s William Gull glimpsing the world to come, The Sickness gives readers a glimpse into what the comics industry could be. Intentional, thoughtful art, driven by talented creators pushing the preconceived boundaries of the medium. One that respects the reader’s intelligence, respects the potential of the form and respects the vision of the creators.
It’s a future Nadler wants to see. He compares it to begging, but only because he understands that a better future for comics is possible. “Whether you’ve bought it or even if you’ve pirated it, if you like it, please tell your people, tell your friends, tell people on social media, because that is the only way the industry will understand that we want more comics like this.”
The Sickness will be released June 20, 2023, from Uncivilized Books.
Clark Urich has been called "The Lester Bangs of Comics" in that he too has overdosed on NyQuil
