JELLYFISH KING HC

A haunting and visually dazzling coming-of-age graphic novel about grief, paranoia, and the stories we inherit.

From the acclaimed creator of Panther and The City of Belgium, Brecht Evens returns with an unconventional and deeply unsettling bildungsroman that explores generational trauma, conspiracy thinking, and the fragile boundary between education and indoctrination.

A child enters the world already marked by loss: his mother is dead, and his grieving father has withdrawn into silence. Desperate for connection and approval, the boy begins to draw—capturing the strange and troubling world around him through images and symbols.

His creativity slowly awakens his father from despair, but the lessons that follow are shaped by fear and suspicion. The child is taught art, science, survival, and the belief that hidden forces lurk beneath everything. Every pattern becomes a code. Every stranger becomes a possible enemy.

Through breathtakingly intricate pages filled with luminous colors, layered symbolism, and sprawling visual tableaus, Evens constructs a world where beauty and menace exist side by side.

Balancing dark humor with psychological horror, the novel examines how paranoia can be passed from one generation to the next and how the search for meaning can spiral into obsession.

Translated by François Vigneault and Brecht Evens, this visually extraordinary graphic novel stands as a powerful exploration of fear, inheritance, and the dangerous stories people tell themselves to survive.