A bad trip leads Annie, our earnest heroine, through a journey of suffering and self-discovery.
Caught within the confines of her own mind, Annie struggles against the doubled weight of trauma and despair. In order to crawl her way out, she must grapple with the cruelest parts of her psyche, and make peace with her inner child and suppressed past. Annie argues with her demons and punches her way toward the light, with a little help from her dedicated and loving friends.
Lushly illustrated with influences from spiritual iconography and psychedelic imagery, Halbert crafts an unflinching yet compassionate story about pain, rage, and the blessings we can give ourselves.
18+ only. This book deals with trauma, sexual and physical violence, mental health, drugs, and other sensitive subjects.
128 full-color pages; 8 x 10”; SRP: $29.99
ISBN 978-1-945509-95-7; Release date: 9/28/22
“Halbert’s art and writing throb with uninhibited scenes of sex and gore, crude but portrayed with wit. Each chapter concludes with her frank confessions about processing her own childhood trauma through creating these comics. Her openhearted emotional arc combined with such shock-erotic visceral imagery make for an entertaining and unexpectedly moving experience for gore-horror fans.”
Acid Nun by artist Corinne Halbert is a beautiful and hallucinogenic journey toward self-healing through a dazzling landscape of Satanic splatter horror. Annie is a sexually and chemically experimental human character, styled in a nun’s habit, who connects momentarily with Eleanor, a fanged entity from the spiritual plane. When a bad acid trip, however, traps Annie in an alternate dimension, Eleanor races against time to find and rescue her from certain destruction, with the help of Bahomet, Eleanor’s “demon brother… oldest lover.” What follows is their psychedelic and erotic quest for sanctity, consulting with powers of divination and scouring the bowels of hell in order to release Annie’s inner child from bonds of her past and return Annie to agency over her own body and soul.
First issued as a series of comics, this volume charts the story’s full, spectacular odyssey in pulsating neon colors, complete with Halbert’s confessional notes about the catharsis she found in the creative process. Although the grotesqueries are highly stylized and explicit, the overall tone of the book is liberating and disarmingly self-aware. There is plenty of humor as well, with the shapeshifting narrator spirit speaking in folksy vernacular (“C’mon over! Step rite up! Let’s take a lil’ trip of ours own, strate inta’ Annie’s mind”), which borders on camp without undermining the heavier themes at play.
Nonetheless, the captivating centerpiece of Acid Nun is Halbert’s hypnotic artwork, which draws on cult horror motifs. The dazzling, full-page paintings could easily stand on their own.
“A psychedelic hymn that cycles through desire, trauma, and rebirth in glorious color. Kneel at the altar of Acid Nun and experience a new comics visionary!”
“The zenith of a boundary-breaking and fearless career.”
“Acid Nun is my favorite underground horror comic of the 21st century. It delivers everything I’d hope for from a comic titled Acid Nun, but also delivers something I wasn’t expecting—a brave underlying theme concerning the exorcism of real-life demons. Buy it. Cherish it. Never stop reading it.”
“Corinne Halbert’s Acid Nun is weird, subversive, and beautiful. It is one of the prettiest outlaw comics I’ve ever read. Original and exciting.”