Where Black Stars Rise
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
AN IGNYTE AWARD WINNER FOR BEST COMICS TEAM!
"Where Black Stars Rise boldly pushes the limits of what a comic can do. ...It's a gorgeous work. I loved it." —Trung Le Nguyen, author of The Magic Fish
Nadia Shammas and Marie Enger's Where Black Stars Rise is an eldritch horror graphic novel that explores mental illness and diaspora, set in modern-day Brooklyn.
Dr. Amal Robardin, a Lebanese immigrant and a therapist in training, finds herself out of her depth when her first client, Yasmin, a schizophrenic, is visited by a nightly malevolent presence that seems all too real.
Yasmin becomes obsessed with Robert Chambers’ classic horror story collection The King in Yellow. Messages she finds in the book lead Yasmin to disappear, seeking answers she can’t find in therapy.
Amal attempts to retrace her patient’s last steps—and accidentally slips through dimensions, ending up in Carcosa, realm of the King in Yellow. Determined to find her way out, Amal enlists the help of a mysterious guide.
Can Amal save Yasmin? Or are they both trapped forever?
“Strange is the night where black stars rise, and strange moons circle through the skies. But stranger still is lost Carcosa...” —From The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this inventive horror comic, Amal Robardin is a therapist in training whose first client, a schizophrenic New York City theatre scene blogger named Yasmin, has been experiencing increasingly intense nighttime visions of a figure looming in the dark beside her bed. Grappling with her own inexperience as a therapist and the expectations of her faraway yet overbearing family, Amal struggles to help Yasmin, who disappears after becoming increasingly absorbed in the mythology of Robert W. Chambers's The King in Yellow, a foundational collection of cosmic horror. Determined to find and rescue Yasmin, Amal gets trapped along with Yasmin in Carcosa, an impossible, mind-melting dimension. To survive and escape, she must confront both her limitations as a therapist and her most elemental fears of failure and ego-death. Together, Shammas and Enger construct an incredible marriage of blisteringly vulnerable subject matter and art that expertly captures the enormous emotions at the heart of the story. Enger's visual style melds jagged punk zine sensibilities with the lush flourishes of Mike Mignola to create a distinct and immersive aesthetic. Of particular note are the inking and coloring, which are used to devastating effect throughout the narrative. Fans of confessional surrealism owe it to themselves to check this out.