In a small Western town tucked between a mountain range and a pristine forest, citizens are disappearing. First it was the owner of the local gas station. Then two buddies who went out into the woods looking for him. When teenage Cassie and her brother, Clay, return to town in search of their estranged father, nothing seems right: The sheriff’s more worried about her land deal than the mystery, Cassie’s only co-worker is a narcoleptic, and there’s a ghost in Clay’s bedroom. As the town reckons with its future, Cassie grapples with her past and her father’s legacy.
Sean Ford’s Only Skin is a spooky graphic novel about small-town life and death. Ford’s deadpan pen-and-ink linework gives the book its sense of quiet menace; reading it, you have no idea what’s coming next, but you know it won’t be good news for these characters. Who is abducting townspeople? Why are deer turning up maimed? Why did Cassie and her brother leave, and what will happen to them now that they’ve come back?
We’re excited to have Sean Ford illustrating the August issue of the Slate Book Review.
Previous SBR comics:
Mind MGMT by Matt Kindt
Birdseye Bristoe by Dan Zettwoch
The Manhattan Projects by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra
Blue by Pat Grant
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
See all the pieces in this month’s Slate Book Review.
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