Young father-to-be, Paco Lazaro, attends an art exhibit featuring his work. The problem is, he hasn’t had any work commissioned, and certainly hasn’t arranged to exhibit any of his paintings either. So what’s going on? As the situation at the gallery becomes more and more twisted and disturbing, frightening details are slowly revealed about Paco and his life.

Creator Ruvel Abril has created an absolutely astonishing piece of work in Depikto, which gradually builds up a Lynchian, surrealist nightmare from an opening that feels steeped in realism. The way that the nightmarish reality unfolds and reveals new elements, leading to an incredibly shocking, disturbing third act reveal that pulls no punches, is nothing short of masterful.

It’s a really powerful story of the power of the mind and, without revealing too much, the devastating and lasting effects of extreme trauma.

The artwork is stunning, with some absolutely jaw dropping sequences of surrealist nightmare imagery, with an amazing sense of scale, layout and general composition. The panels are drenched in detail and the more naturalistic elements of the story provide a fantastic contrast to the weirdness that unfolds alongside them. It pulls some genuinely stunning tricks with both the visuals and writing, including a very clever fourth wall break, amongst numerous other well deployed narrative devices.

I found it utterly absorbing and deeply affecting; despite some devastating, horrific, genuinely haunting events I was relieved that it’s not entirely nihilistic or pessimistic in its outlook by the end of the story. Given what happens, it could easily have devolved into a depressing quagmire, but it’s to Abril’s credit that he still manages to wring some genuine optimism, dare I say hope, from it, despite the sheer darkness of the protagonist’s situation.

It’s a phenomenal work of art on many different levels, and it’s no surprise that it was part of the official selection for the 1st Philippine International Comics Festival.

A word of warning: it’s very graphic in terms of its violence, nudity and challenging subject matter in general, but if you think you can cope with the twisting, twisted journey that the story takes you on, you’ll find that it’s worth the trip. Depikto will certainly remain in my mind for some time to come.

Depikto can be purchased directly from publisher Komiket here.

Many thanks to Ruvel Abril for providing me with a digital copy of Depikto for review purposes.