Ian Gabriel (’20) presents his thesis story, ‘Supreme Beings’
Alone in his jail cell awaiting his execution by guillotine in the final days of the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre is a man lost in darkness after being haunted by the Visitors—otherworldly beings that only he can see and hear, whose very language bends space and time by giving Maximilien dark visions of what will be, not just for France but for all of humanity. But for Maximilien, these visions are only of what shouldn’t be. Seeking to save France and himself, Maximilien takes hold of France to guide it as a beacon of hope for the rest of humanity, by any means necessary. As Maximilien struggles against fate and the Visitors’ grip on reality itself, he will find that to be in denial is to become a supreme being of destruction.
Ian Gabriel is an American cartoonist who started in comics by drawing monsters for Rosarium Publishing’s Manticore and has now moved on to drawing monstrous people in his graphic novel Supreme Beings. With a lifelong passion for Gothic imagery, history, comics, and the bizarre, Ian looks to find the humanity in such places, and to explore what our darker sides can tell us to help express our better natures. His next book, he swears, will be a light-hearted comedy.
