Read an exclusive excerpt from a teen horror comic inspired by real small-town cults

In Matthew Erman and Sam Beck’s Lovingly, Ohiothe inscrutable, knife-wielding serial killer is less existentially terrifying than the prospect of never leaving your childhood hometown. Unfortunately, the teenage protagonists of the new horror graphic novel still have to contend with both.

“The mythology of the Midwest is to escape,” Erman told Polygon via email, “and if you can’t, it means you’ve failed in some way (or at least that’s how it felt growing up). … That phrase, ‘the idea of ​​never leaving Ohio,’ resonates throughout the book. Because it really reflects that deep fear that so many grow up with of never escaping the ‘home’ they feel stuck in, whether that’s a small town, a possessive church, a rough family, etc.”

Lovingly, Ohio follows four teenagers: Sloane, Cameron, Elliott, and Ana. Still reeling from the recent suicide of their friend Jesse, they are confronted with a series of disappearances and teenage violence that seem to be connected to a local religious organization called Chorus — and a deadly serial killer called the Man in the Afternoon. The book is inspired by Ferris Bueller’s Day Offfilms by David Lynch and the music of Hiroshi Yoshimura and Haruomi Hosono, Erman said, but also his own experiences.

“It’s a fictional story, but part of it is based on the way I was in a cult until I was a teenager. I think each character in their own way expresses something unique about being in a cult or being aware of a cult in the city where you live.”

One of Polygon’s must-read books of the summer, Lovingly, Ohio The plot veers easily between teenage mayhem and moments of horror that are both utterly mundane — like the fear of a last-minute fluke coming between you and graduating from high school — and violently surreal — like the sudden appearance of the Man in the Afternoon at a local rock show, seen below in a six-page excerpt courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.

“Sam and I tried really hard to play with those themes,” Erman told Polygon, “specifically in design and tone to make the book feel like a reflection of the horror, and the horror is a reflection of the city, and for me it meant a mix of the mundane, the inhuman, and the creepy that swirls around New Age Eastern cult language. The book is full of deliberate mysteries that are deliberately left unsolved.

“Embrace the mystery,” was his advice to readers.