Gosh! Best Of 2022
Ultrasound was originally published by Breakdown Press between 2014-2021 under the name “Generous Bosom”. Fantagraphics have collected the complete story for this edition, retitled Ultrasound and presented in a luxurious hardback, replete with a larger format and blacklight-hidden secrets in its depths. Our story begins with a late-night flat tyre and an uncomfortable request for help from the wrong house. To give you any further indication of where the book’s going to take you would be doing it a disservice; I can’t remember feeling so completely engrossed and immersed in a comic for a long time, a testament to the quality of the storytelling and Stechshulte’s ability to communicate through his art. Through the 400-or-so pages (and a decade’s worth of creating) you can see his craft evolve until you get the final, pulse-pounding and confounding “Part Four”. For all intents and purposes, Ultrasound is a bit of a sci-fi thriller. However, it’s filled with revelations, tonal shifts and twists that force you to recontextualise everything you’ve come to know so far about its story.
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 strange confessions and an unexpected offer that Glen can't refuse.