The skin inside you
cartoonist: Ashley Robin Franklin
Publisher: Silver sprocket
Publication date: November 2024
Ashley Robin Franklin The skin inside you It is a rich and earthy collection of seven plant horror stories. In the subversive tradition of queer horror, plant horror is excavated under the surface topsoil of normative human understanding to reveal that these creatures crawl on our roots. Whether in deep forests or in open deserts, Franklin’s comics are full of inhumane wildness. The characters in the series venture into the wilderness with good will, but they all find that nature is not always nurturing.
One of my favorite stories The skin inside you It is “#PlantMom” and is narrated as a series of social media screenshots. Tabitha is a young and attractive Instagram influencer who posted photos of herself and plants to her account @tabithagrows. One of her articles received comments and provided a “rare specimen” in an account called “Seed”. The seed has no followers, and a strange atmosphere hoveres on its light formation. But Tabitha’s interest in botany is real, and she is not passionate about interactions with her followers.
Tabitha accepts the mysterious seedlings and begins to be obsessed with their growth. As the plants flourish, Tabitha became exceptionally spectacular. People near Tabitha began to share photos of her house that seemed overgrown and abandoned. The fleshy plant growth eventually ruptured the windows and roofs, and a video posted on YouTube captured the incredible climax of Tabitha’s transformation.
For me, it’s exactly what it feels like to be a creative person who posts on social media. Most of us start by just wanting to share what we love. If we are lucky, we can find a community. But as our audience grows bigger, the more pressure we feel is to maintain a positive and problem-free image. Still, even if artists’ social media posts look bright and sunny on the surface, the seeds of creativity are often far from wholesome.
#PlantMom is not a moral story; it’s a weird and unexplainable thing, and its ending has attracted speculation. Every story can be said like this The skin inside youwhile enjoying, the series rejects lighthearted explanations.
“Night Blossom” provides a similar ambiguous character arc. After his partner’s death, Hector left his apartment in Austin and settled in an old farmhouse on the edge of the South Texas desert bush. Once the move is gone, Hector’s new neighbor Ruth comes to welcome him. Ruth lost her son decades ago, but her grief is still very close. She was friendly and supportive, and she seemed to be just Hector’s friend. Still, Hector is upset by Ruth’s long night walk, a tangled group of savages whose suspicions are real. Ruth’s grief proved to be still fresh as she was feeding it. Literally.
My appreciation for Franklin’s comics is that there is a problem with how their characters are in small but relevant ways. They behave badly and make mistakes. They also have difficulty communicating, and the challenge becomes even more difficult when they are unsure of what they see or experience. Many of Franklin’s characters are queer, trans and non-binary, but that doesn’t matter. Plants do not care about human identity, nor do they distinguish between human concepts of good and evil. The earth swallows everyone likewise.
The series progresses from story to story themes gradually prepare readers for their final work, “Contest Champion,” which ends with a shocking twist. In any other case The skin inside you. Perhaps the last encounter with an inhuman queer might even be like going home.
Whether the environment is the shadow of the forest or the pale moonlight of the desert, Franklin’s dynamic comic art is good at conveying human emotions, just like creating a tangible sense of place. The characters often shrink from the spotlight and then hide on the edge of the panel, then claim their emotions and express themselves sharply. The trees are vaguely visible in the background, as well as various bushes around the panel boundary. The completely normal and comfortable interior, along with the character, evolves into an ever-increasing incompatibility.
Each of the seven stories The skin inside you Incredibly disturbing. Even if Franklin’s queer and female characters exist in a world that does not regard their humanity as normative, these stories provide an inner reminder that there is nothing “normal” to be human on a planet with all kinds of organisms.
“I’ve been fantasizing about the book for years, a creepy cursed object full of my own horror.” Indeed, Silver Sprocket’s hardcover version of Hardcover version, with its handsome black cover and bright red foil relief The skin inside you is a heavy book that adds fascinating knowledge of taboos to any bookshelf.
The skin inside you Now available via silver sprocket
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