Book Review: “Obscura” by Cartwright Luke & Wnuczek Lukasz (Illustrations)

“Obscura” by Cartwright Luke & Wnuczek Lukasz (Illustrations) (2020)

Genre: Fiction, Horror, Thriller

Page Length: 198 pages (hardcover edition)

Synopsis:

Van Diemen’s Land, 1870. William Morier is a 12-year-old mortician, enraptured by the beautiful, ghost-conjuring sisters Catherine and Annabel White. One day Annabel’s corpse arrives at William’s funeral home, her death a mystery.

A decade later, William marries Catherine, who confesses to her charlatan conjuring act as a young girl. When she suffers a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, William is desperate to raise the cash to pay for her operation.

William becomes a fraudulent ‘spirit photographer.’ He sneaks into morgues and hospitals to photograph the corpses of rich men. He props them up with wooden stakes and uses his mortician’s skills to bring them back to life. Then, he visits their widows, promising he can sense their husband’s spirit. He shoots the widow using the same photographic plate and superimposes the dead man so he appears to haunt the scene. The widows splurge their inherited fortunes on these ‘spirit photographs.’

But when a police officer discovers one of the “spirits” from William’s photos alive and working as a butcher downtown, William sinks to grave-digging, body-snatching depravity to keep the scam alive. (description from Goodreads)

Review:

I was immediately intrigued by this book by its synopsis! It’s a tale full of mystery, suspense, with an overall gritty tone. And a story definitely not for the faint of heart. Forewarning to some readers that this graphic novel is pretty gory and deals with the topic of death.

The story follows William who is the son of a funeral home owner. Because of his fathers profession he is often ostracized by others and this extends late into his life due to an incident during his childhood. Later in life, he marries a childhood acquaintance and the two try to move on from the past that haunts them. The two strike up a con business in “spirit” photography, but how long can they keep up the facade?

My mind was blown away by the artwork of this book with it’s simple use of gray scale tones. It has an overall ominous feeling with its use of heavy shadowing. Being that the graphic novel is only in black and white only added to the overall reader experience. The artwork reminded me a of a mixture of noir and old classic (silent) horror movies. It gave the story a eerie vibe and some foreshadowing as to what would come next in the plot. There was so much attention to detail in each panel which I greatly appreciated.

As for the story, The narrator felt a bit unreliable since he becomes loose at the seams, but at the same time you aren’t sure if you can trust the overly superstitious townspeople. Catherine and William gain a horrible reputation very fast with their new business. The story kept me engaged with it’s constant spins and some plot twists caught me completely by surprise. I would highly recommend this graphic novel for readers who enjoy dark, spooky stories with a vintage feel!

Final Verdict: