Driving home from a wedding late one night during a heavy storm, out of cell range, Glen blows out his tires. He knocks on the door of the only house he sees and is greeted by an uncomfortably friendly middle-aged man, Arthur, and his attractive younger wife, Cyndi. The strange couple pours him a drink, and then more drinks, followed by odd confessions and an unexpected offer that Glen can’t refuse.
Where Ultrasound zigs and zags from there is into a dizzying plot involving mind control, government secrets, gaslighting, and political intrigue that is always one step ahead of the reader. Stechschulte’s brilliant use of color and mastery of comics storytelling yields a breathtaking puzzlebox of a sci fi thriller—the moment you finish, you will want to go back and reread Ultrasound from the start.
Ultrasound has also been adapted into an acclaimed feature film directed by Robert Schroeder and starring Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men), from a screenplay by Stechschulte. The film earned raves at the 2021 Tribeca Film Fest and is scheduled for theatrical release in March 2022 and will premiere streaming on Hulu in June.
Bro what the fuck
From start to finish, this book plats with the reader. Even the title is chosen to fuck with the reader. You’re basically riding back seat to this strange plot, layered artwork, and unreliable narratives that leads you into this unsettling… onion of a story. I say onion in the Shrek meaning, not the stinking meaning.
It’s quite a good book— it has the reader constantly questioning what really happened, what’s the reality, what is going on? What are the motivations? How do I know what I’m seeing is real? It begs the reader to start again from the beginning with the foreknowledge of the ending, to try to pick it apart.
There are literally layers of artwork, and while an interesting use of the medium, it made me struggle quite a bit to read. I sometimes wondered if that was intentional, as well, though. At times it was difficult to parse even when the art was clean, so interwoven everything was.
All in all, I’d recommend it to people who like unique takes on comics but not someone who gets easily frustrated.
