Sometimes you have to dig up the corpse of your deceased husband’s mother for a trachea, okay?
Set against the backdrop of the Great British Smog incident of 1952 (look it up, it’s bonkers) the new graphic novel The Order of the Circle promises historical occult revenge, and it delivers. Dorothy Schafer has been betrayed. When her husband is unjustly found guilty of a heinous crime, that’s bad enough, but when he’s sentenced to death and banishment to Hell, Dorothy stands up to the Order to clear his name. Cursed with muteness, the graphic novel starts with her plotting her bloody revenge. Scarred and angry, Dorothy is accompanied by the ghost of her husband as she seeks to pay back the Circle for how they’ve destroyed her life. And she has receipts. Dorothy has documentation that proves The Circle has done heinous things to what they deem to be inconvenient people, and whoever stand in their way.
We are all well aware of stories where high society and government oppresses folks and the use convenient scapegoats to distract from the mistakes of the powerful (*looks around meaningfully at, well, everything*). Dorothy is an intriguing character who has had her voice literally taken away from her, and yet still gets up every day to take action. Secret mutual aid societies, collections of protected knowledge, a heroine that won’t quit, and the occasional occult codex? Has someone been peeking at my Christmas list? Artists Elisabeth Mkheidze and Eva de La Cruz give us the old Hammer Horror vibes in The Order of the Circle, and writer Levi Cory keeps readers locked in.
Just be warned going in, when the creators say this is bloody, they aren’t joking. There are severed legs, pulled teeth, and a trachea stollen from a human corpse in the middle of the night are all right there on the page. In short, maybe don’t hand this one off to your kids.
The Order of the Circle comes to stores from Dead Sky Publishing February 18, 2025.
