Warning: Sleeping Beauties is a MATURE comic
Better not sleep on this one: IDW has announced the long-awaited release of the first volume of Sleeping Beauties, their graphic novel adaptation of the New York Times bestselling horror-fantasy novel by Stephen and Owen King. Brutal, terrifying and rife with social commentary on gender relations in our modern society, Sleeping Beauties Vol. 1 will collect the first five issues of the planned ten-issue series focusing on a mysterious goddess-like figure “Black Eva” and the devastating plague she unleashes across the world in order to punish those carrying a Y-chromosome for their violent ways. A plague that wraps sleeping women in cocoons.
Released in 2017, Sleeping Beauties featured a first-time team-up between the famed horror scribe Stephen King and his younger son Owen, and followed the travails of a small town in America dealing with problems straight out of a Grimm fairy-tale. Receiving rave reviews for its inventive story and bold exploration of contemporary gender relations, the book was set to be adapted into an AMC drama, with a pilot green-lit before the onset of COVID-19 put a stop to most television productions. IDW Publishing, on the other hand, managed to work through the crisis and began publication of their own adaptation in June, 2020.
Now halfway through publication, IDW announced in a press release that they would release the first of two graphic novels later this month, featuring novelist Rio Youers on adaptation duty alongside artist Alison Sampson and colorist Triona Tree Farrell. Closely following the story of the novel, Sleeping Beauties takes a holistic psychological perspective in exploring the fictional town of Dooling, West Virginia, as they fight against the brink of societal collapse when all the women in the world are gradually enveloped in strange silk cocoons after they fall asleep, an effect known as “the Aurora sickness.” Check out the preview art below:
Calling the story “a gripping dark fantasy of gender dynamics, individuality, and toxic masculinity,” IDW also released quotes by the creators, with artist Sampson saying:
It’s also been a deeply challenging work to draw. It certainly contains the most genuine horror I’ve dealt with as an artist, but also it is extraordinarily diverse, in a positive way. Being an artist is having agency to do something with this. People need to be seen, and I hope to some extent I’ve been able to enable that, and hopefully the work is richer as a result.
Evocative of much of the elder King’s early work, Sleeping Beauties is above all a tale that demonstrates the pitfalls and shortcomings of humanity in the face of crisis, most notably the tendency in men to excuse their violent or irrational behavior when confronted with their harmful choices. More broadly, Stephen and Owen King's story can be seen as a commentary on the cultural obsession with a “might makes right” mentality, especially in the realms of fiction, and the intractable nature of this problem in a society that accepts violence.
Can mankind prove itself compassionate enough to stave off total destruction? Sleeping Beauties Vol. 1 goes on sale April 20 from IDW Publishing.
Source: IDW Publishing
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