If you’re as obsessed with The Substance as the rest of us are, we’ve got a great follow-up for you. It’s the comic book series “The Beauty” by Jeremy Horn and Jason A. Hurley.
It was originally launched as part of Top Cow’s “Pilot Season” program, which became an award winner. The Beauty is set in a world where “The Beauty” exists, a sexually transmitted disease that makes you beautiful. The only problem? As the first problem made abundantly clear, it can also cause spontaneous combustion.
There’s a lot more going on in this book, which focuses on two cops (one with The Beauty and one without Beauty) investigating these strange explosions. And it spirals into some wild and profound directions as it progresses. It’s science fiction, it’s horror, it’s a police procedural…and yet it’s completely original and unlike anything you’ve read before.
The style that Horn uses throughout taps into noir according to the cop protagonist, but focuses on the differences between the pre-Beauty and post-Beauty characters. It’s difficult, but it works beautifully here, envisioning a world where beauty comes at a high price, but one that most people are willing to pay.
It was also made into a television series directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Evan Peters, Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Ramos, and Jeremy Pope. So if you want to say you were a fan long before it exploded online, check out this book this Halloween. Let’s call it beautiful.
The Beauty is collected in six volumes, but if you want to try it out before you buy, you can read the first issue of The Beauty for free on Image Comic’s website.
It’s spooky season. You know what that means. Time to curl up with a comic or graphic novel that will scare your socks off. With that in mind, we’re posting a new horror book to check out every day of October in 31 Days of Halloween Comics. Wow! Looking for more recommendations? Check out our Halloween tag!
