WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 53Review_FICTION Review_FICTION
knows he can’t voice any protest for fear of
rebuke. Heads literally burst. When faced
with a paranormal event, the effects of a
society run on doublespeak make that
miracle just another contradiction to
absorb. Kyle’s experimental art, with its
blobby animal-like characters and long
sequences focused on abstract machines
and its frequent repeated blank page
breaks, is as weird as he’s established in
prior books, but this graphic novel is sur-
prisingly accessible. It delivers a savvy
takedown, leveraging broad humor to
expose the essential absurdity of everyday
life spent at the whims of self-deluded
narcissists. (Oct.)The Invisible Empire:
Madge Oberholtzer and the
Unmasking of the Ku Klux Klan
Micky Neilson, Todd Warger, and Marc Bostel.
Insight Comics, $24.99 (112p) ISBN 978-1-
68383-447-2
While this historical graphic novel has
noble ambitions, dramatizing the true
story of a brutal 1920s crime that ignited
a backlash against the Ku Klux Klan, the
execution is cringe-inducing. Madge
Oberholtzer, portrayed here as a relentlessly
sunny young educator, briefly dates D.C.
Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Indiana
Klan and operator of a far-right political
machine. After she leaves him, he and his
cronies kidnap and rape her. Prosecutor
William Remy takes on the case against
Stephenson, challenging the Klan’s
power. The story is clumsily scripted and
drawn with cartoonishly evil, ugly racists
sneering at attractive Brylcreemed
heroes. The creators never surmount the
inherent problem of telling a story about
racism by focusing on the suffering of a
white woman and the heroism of a white
man. Instead, they surround the white
heroes with minor black characters who
inspire them (“It’s only when we use all
the colors in the palette that the canvas
really comes to life,” a friendly black artist
tells Oberholtzer in a painfully unsubtle
scene) and cheer them on. The overly
photorealistic art is awkward, with photo-
statted backgrounds and characters who
pass into the uncanny valley. This stiff,
didactic, and overly sensationalistic
attempt at illustrating history is one to
miss. (Sept.)opens with Mel, an ordinary young woman,
inexplicably falling through an infinite
expanse of sky. With the initial panic out
of the way, she settles into her bizarre new
existence: sleeping and relieving herself in
midair, using her jacket to glide like a
flying squirrel, and scavenging food and
water from the mundane detritus and
household objects and appliances plum-
meting around her. “Do I just keep falling
forever?” she wonders, a question this
graphic novel leaves, so to speak, up in the
air. The brightly colored, snappy art belies
the darkness of the narrative, which
develops into absurdist survival horror
tinged with grim humor and occasional
moments of grace. Above all, the book is a
virtuoso artistic exercise, allowing Tjia (The
Hipless Boy) to depict an endless variety of
falling people and objects and scenarios
where they attempt to interact. Mel eats
from a falling vending machine, climbs
through a tumbling apartment building,
scales an upside down tree, and falls
through a lake. She also fights fellow
survivors (“This whole place is like the
Wild West—everyone marking territory,
suspicious of strangers”) and eventually
finds a friend. If sometimes it all feels more
like a drawing challenge than a complete
story, the reader is inexorably pulled
along the remarkable slide down, in this
unsettling fable of life in freefall. (Oct.)The Death of The Master
Patrick Kyle. Koyama, $19.95 trade paper
(224p) ISBN 978-1-927668-71-9
Kyle (Roaming Foliage) uses a simple,
angular line in the service of this devas-
tating satire of religion, industry, and
arbitrary authority. It takes place in a
society dominated by an eccentric Master,
a cult leader whose every nonsensical
utterance is taken as a pearl of wisdom
and absolute truth. When he dies, an
elaborate lattice of lies, contradictions,
and pure Dada is unveiled to keep the
workers obedient. Kyle mixes in scato-
logical humor that not only humanizes
the characters but reveals the sheer
banality of the entire society. The action
is episodic and character-specific, rotating
vignettes between the lives of workers,
artists, children, comically evil industrial-
ists, and the Master’s closest disciples.
Every one of them is either evil, vain, or
deluded. Even the occasional skepticfaith-grounded crime dramas. (Nov.)Comics
The Twilight Man: Rod Serling
and the Birth of Television
Koren Shadmi. Life Drawn, $22.95 trade paper
(168p) ISBN 978-1-64337-571-7
This sharp graphic biography mimics
Rod Serling’s gift for mordant trickery
without descending into parody as a
martini-downing Serling spills his life
story to a flirty seatmate on a nighttime
PanAm flight. Shadmi (Highwayman)
approximates Serling’s clipped and por-
tentous style: “This particular specimen
is Private Rodman Serling, age eighteen.
A Jewish boy from small town
Binghamton, New York,” he writes,
describing
Serling at the
time of his
WWII para-
trooper service.
Crushed by the
“futility” of
combat, Serling
nearly succumbs
to PTSD. But
the success of
his 1956 teleplay Patterns sparked a streak
culminating in the 1959 launch of his
groundbreaking anthology show The
Twilight Zone, whose scripts were fueled by
the fears swirling in his “night terrors.” He
declares his intent is to dig into America’s
subconscious, “harvest dark matter, reshape
it, disguise it, and serve it back to the
masses.” Shadmi’s art evokes the show’s
signature hard lines and stark framing. The
subversive series ended in 1964; Serling’s
later years were a struggle, lightened by the
surprise hit of his Planet of the Apes screen-
play. While the book introduces the kind
of dramatic final twist its subject would
have approved, less attention is paid to
the psychology behind why Serling so
often concocted them. Nevertheless, it’s a
perceptive take, which celebrates and
illuminates one of early television’s true
artists. (Oct.)Plummet
Sherwin Tjia. Conundrum, $20 trade paper
(160p) ISBN 978-1-77262-040-5
This visually ingenious graphic novel