KATZENJAMMER

Cat is trapped in School: How she got there, how long she has been there, and what is happening, and why are lost to her, in the same way that she has lost her eyes, with only empty sockets left behind.

Memories slowly begin to bubble to the surface, such as the first day of first grade when she met her first friend and her first bully. Soon the flashbacks reach middle school, where art classes and a new friend provided sanctuary and escape. Meanwhile, School is a nightmare world where the violence of words is made manifest in torn flesh and where students othered in the real world find no respite. Their bodies have changed in monstrous ways that reflect the differences that made them targets for those with popularity and prestige. It is evident early on that Cat is somehow involved in the construction of this violent, otherworldly imagining of School, but the details are unclear. As the worlds of memory and fantasy grow nearer, the violence rapidly escalates, and soon, mass maiming and deaths litter every page, challenging even readers with a strong constitution for violence. While interspersed chapters of flashback memories provide some respite, there is ultimately no relief from the psychological and physical violence that permeates both the real world and nightmare conceptions of School. The book follows a White default. (Final art not seen.)

A nihilistic hellscape of gore and high school politics.