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Meet Gustave Doré, the Man Who Shaped Our Vision of Hell

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Dante, Virgil, and Charon crossing the River Styx

In the early 14th century, Italian poet Dante Alighieri began work on his “Divina Commedia“, the Divine Comedy, which was comprised of three separate but interwoven tales: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The story follows Dante as he is walks through the afterlife with the Roman poet Virgil as his guide, starting on the night before Good Friday and culminating on the Wednesday after Easter, a trip that lasts approximately a week.

Hailed as one of the greatest works of literature throughout history, The Divine Comedy is known not only for its structure, its themes and motifs, and its characters but also for Alighieri’s wild and, at times, terrifying imagination. After all, the first portion of this story is entirely devoted to Dante’s journey’s through the Nine Circles of Hell, which ends in the 10th layer, where he sees the Lord of Darkness himself, Satan.

The Nine Circles of Hell are where the damned must suffer for their crimes, each layer hosting a different type of sinner. There is Limbo, where the souls of pagans and the unbaptized must remain for eternity; Lust, where offenders are trapped in a violent storm, ever spiraling and chaotic; the icy rainstorm of Gluttony; the ironically twisted fate of those guilty of Greed as they are cast into a pot of molten gold; a vicious war in a dark swamp in Anger; Heresy, where heretics burn endlessly; the horror of Violence, where those who lived a life of rage drown in a lake of boiling blood; Fraud, where souls are tortured at the hands of demons, who cast them into a dark pit; and last is Treachery, where those guilt are frozen from the waist down to be displayed as a monument of their offense.

The descriptions Dante wove with his words inspired and shaped artists, sculptors, writers, directors, video game developers, and more. His visions have sparked imaginations for centuries and I doubt that awe and fascination will cease any time soon.

Traveling forward a few hundred years to the mid-19th century, we meet Gustave Doré, a French artist, illustrator, and sculptor. One of his main mediums was wood-carved prints, a talent that would lock his work in the annals of history, forever appreciated.

Born in 1832, Doré was a prodigy in the world of art. By 15, he was working for the satirical paper “Le Journal pour rire” as a caricaturist, a job that got him exposure and led to commissions for various books. He was renowned for his work, becoming very successful in his craft and working until his death in Paris in 1883. Many of his illustrations can be seen in the works of Byron, Homer, and Goethe, and Shakespeare.

While Dante’s “Divina Commedia” had already been around for hundreds of years, its popularity quite obviously went through periods of interest and dismissal. It was in the mid-19th century in France that the poet’s works were once again finding audiences and it was due to this resurgence that Doré decided to create illustrations for the epic. However, he was unable to find anyone who would finance his works, so he took the unorthodox risk of illustrating and self-publishing Inferno in 1861. This release went on to become an instant success, one that brought Doré not only much acclaim but also an offer from Hachette and Co. for both Purgatorio and Paradiso.

Doré’s illustrations were so fascinating that there were even some who believed that the artist must have been in league with the Devil to have created such terrifying works of art.

“…we are inclined to believe that the conception and the interpretation come from the same source, that Dante and Gustave Doré are communicating by occult and solemn conversations the secret of this Hell plowed by their souls, traveled, explored by them in every sense. [Source]”

These illustrations, to this day, are what people think of when they envision Dante’s journeys. Dante’s words laid the foundation for Doré’s work and with the two combined you have a journey through the afterlife that has inspired and influenced more people than can ever be understood. Films like What Dreams May Come, Jacob’s Ladder, Seven, Hannibal and even Pandorum all owe a great deal to the French artist’s visual interpretation of Alighieri’s world.

Hell has a face and it was Gustave Doré that showed it to the world.

Editor’s note: I want to extend a special thanks to World of Dante. I highly encourage anyone interested by this post to spend some time there, as they are a wonderful resource and I couldn’t have done this post without them.

Managing editor/music guy/social media fella of Bloody-Disgusting

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[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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