Review: Disorder #1-3

How about a collection of body horror comics in pure raw feelings manifesting exposed vulnerability, capturing mental health and dysphoria in black and white sketch twisted art in a style that impacts like the product of M.C Escher, Junji Ito, H.R Geiger, Ben Templesmith, and Graham Ingels caught in a bad acid trip fighting over a death metal album cover gig? Then prepare to enter the sacred world of Disorder by Erika Price.

Erika Price is a comic book artist and creator with a catalogue of dark creations. Her works include the collection of shorts This Dread Disease We Call Skin and the catholic gothic horror Ursula, as well as a short in issue four of the horror anthology magazine Razorblades. All her self-published work is available on erikapriceart.bigcartel.com. Erika's work shines a beautifully horrific beacon of emotion and energy that's not for the faint of heart. It is unrelenting body horror imagery of brutal honesty that is impossible to ignore.

So, let's start with the art. Although I made the perhaps crass comparison to horror alumni, Erika's art is still something uniquely different. There are the faintest of touches of death metal album cover, but such a comparison is reductive of the subject matter. The art has a heart and depth of a Delia Detritus sculpture in fluid comic book form. The art is beautifully brutal and the most integral part of the narrative across the three issues. It can feel overwhelming in parts, maybe or particularly on a first read, but to sit with it a while is to be consumed with the emotion on offer. It's empathetic brutality.

The flow of these comics is guided by the art as the linguistic narrative is much looser. The imagery, however, is closer to a stream of consciousness. A manifestation of much more confrontational feelings and emotions.

The art Erika offers is divided into fifteen disorders across the three books (five per), a lot of which is represented in imagery that feels can only be fully unlocked, past the wonder of exquisite body horror, through shared experience. Experiences that I'm sure I am not equipped or clever enough to ever fully appreciate, but I do find undeniable power portrayed through the recurring themes of depression, social isolation, intrusive thoughts, existential crises and dysphoria. I feel like this art offers an alluring gateway of interpretation that may mean even the themes I feel resonate could be more self-projected than intended, but nonetheless, there is beauty to behold.

The art subjects are often grotesque humanoids in nature, interspersed with building "growths" and creatures that seem like a commentary of societal connection, further detailed with almost psychedelic background fractals and demanding lettering. Lettering it should be said that is presented as almost scrawled, which delivers a pain that holds a sweet release. Disorder ten of book two shows Erika using her lettering style to assault the senses in a feeling indicative of intrusive, consuming thoughts. It cannot be stressed enough how impactful this art is at delivering itself. I love its brutalism, its detail, style and presentation.

Examining the story then, and I fear this may be unjustly short as really there is no traditional narrative in this unconventional comic. What is on offer is an emotional examination of Erika's experiences. The introspective nature has sometimes silent chapters across its fifteen chapters, and when text is added, it feels closer to an art installation like Yaz Metcalfe's "Permanent" than anything else I have come across.

To try to separate narrative from illustrative is to dissect this comic in an unjust way. This is art intrinsically connected across the forms presented. This comic, although defiantly different, still submits a dissection of emotions that can be found to resonate in a very important way to anyone struggling to find expression of experience, which I feel is the most salient tool Erika and Disorder provides.

For fans of comics that bludgeon with beauty, horror, sublime body horror, powerful imagery and subtext, haunting black and white art, with a heart of introspection for those that can stomach it. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like it a lot, and it will resonate with many. Destructively powerful in beauty. To get your hands on copies of all three issues as well as all of Erika's other work, go to erikapriceart.bigcartel.com and follow her on social media @erikapriceart.

Rating: 5/5