By Zack Quaintance — I had a familiar feeling while reading I Breathed a Body #1. It was the feeling one gets watching a creator’s narrative interests continue to emerge, continuing to make themselves know in sharper and more poignant detail. I’ve had this feeling often.

I had it while going through David Lynch’s career, watching the idea of seediness beneath the shining American veneer grow from a feature in Blue Velvet to entire seasons of classic television with Twin Peaks. I had it while reading Cormac McCarthy’s bibliography up through The Road, a culmination that asks after thousands of likeminded (and gorgeous) pages how a man can hope to survive with values intact in an increasingly evil and uncaring world. It’s a good feeling, one that indicates a creator has stayed true to their vision, has structured their stories with purpose, and has made their art because their are ideas that continue to fight their way from head to screen or ear or page.

That’s what seems to be at work in I Breathed a Body #1, which is written by Zac Thompson. This comic is billed as “…a science fiction horror series about social media, big tech, and influencer culture…” And that’s exactly what it is. It reminded me first of Come Into Me, a book that Thompson co-wrote with frequent collaborator Lonnie Nadler. Come Into Me — which was illustrated by Piotr Kowalski with colors by Niko Guardia — is a truly excellent (and severely underrated) comic, one that involves a titan of the tech industry who uses experimental new processes to save a withering body. And it also reminded me of Lonely Receiver, a Thompson collaboration with artist Jen Hickman that ranks as one of comic’s best break-up stories and an expert horror-tinged look at where life ends and social media/tech reliance begins.

By reading these comics, one gets a sense of Thompson’s foward-looking and thoughtful ideas around tech and social media. Now in I Breathed a Body #1, that conversation is even further developed. This is the story of a tech company with a mysterious and seemingly-primal supernatural connection to mystic forces. It opens on the birth of a child under some sort of monstrous outgrowth from a wall, a shaded figure standing by as a nude father jams a syringe into the kid. It’s truly striking and horrendous imagery from the team of artist Andy MacDonald and colorist Triona Farrell, and it seems to take all of Thompson’s past work as well as what this stands to be moving forward, and shout at the audience — we are not longer #&$^-ing around, it’s time to consider these issues and be truly truly scared.

And that’s the tone we get throughout I Breathed a Body #1. This is indeed a book about science fiction, horror, social media, big tech, and influencer culture. But there have been a lot of books about science fiction, horror, social media, big tech, and influencer culture. See Unfollowed, see also Bad Reception, and see as well Crowded — all of which are very very good. None, however, seemed to suggest the dark and insidious ways that these elements have developed in recent years as directly as I Breathed a Body #1. And how could they? Thompson has a clear advantage in that he’s been developing stories around these ideas for years now.

The aforementioned art team is also stupendous. That opening sequence simply doesn’t work as well in theory as it does with their execution. The seething and horrifying wall, the shaded figure, the syringe — it’s all so disturbing when laid out visually. It’s almost jarring when the next scene shifts to the sunny heart of Silicon Valley, which is the exact effect they seemed to have been going for. From there the work is more grounded as it takes readers through this debut…until all of a sudden it’s not again. No spoilers, but I will note that an item of significance from the first scene appears again toward the end, and the visuals do a great job making it distinct enough that readers will easily recall it once it does.

The last bit of praise I want to heap upon this comic has to do with the back matter. I’ve sure written about this on this site before, but I often find backmatter in comics — especially those driven by prose — to be largely superfluous. Publishers like AHOY Comics are their own thing, and they often do a great job with it. For the most part, however, it feels like a bit of a vanity addition. This is not the case in I Breathed a Body #1. This first issue ends on such a foreboding and consequential note, that it propels readers right into the backmatter — which is really well-written and additive. In other words, read this comic, read all of it, and don’t skip the words at the end.

It’s absolutely the best example so far this year of what smart indie comics can and should be, and if you love the medium and are afraid of where big tech is taking us, you need to be reading this book.

Overall: I Breathed a Body #1 is a perfectly-executed and ragingly-smart body horror comic that takes existential concern over social media, influencers, and big tech, and distills it into one of the most interesting stories of the young year. Do not miss this comic. 9.8/10

REVIEW: I Breathed a Body #1

I Breathed a Body #1
Writer: Zac Thompson
Artist: Andy MacDonald
Colorist: Triona Farrell
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher: AfterShock Comics
A science fiction horror series about social media, big tech, and influencer culture.
It’s The Social Network meets Hellraiser. When the world’s biggest influencer posts something irredeemably horrific online, the world changes in an instant. Now it’s up to his social media manager, Anne Stewart, to fan the flames of outrage and create a sensationalist campaign that rewrites the rules of “banned content.” Thus begins a carnival of lust, revulsion, desire, and disgust – all for viral videos.
Price: $4.99
Buy It Digitally: I Breathed a Body #1

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.