Box of Bones: Book One

What if the collective trauma of Black people over centuries took on a life of its own, magical and powerful enough to destroy tormentors and tormented alike? For her PhD dissertation, Lindsay Ford seeks to learn about a mysterious box from which four terrifying spectral embodiments of suffering may be conjured. The Wretched, for example, appears as a sentient lynching tree that lassos its victims. Five episodes recap horrific circumstances in Black history, but with grisly pay-back by one of the deadly specters that will spiral out of control unless the box is closed. Yet closing the box requires the sacrificial death of the one closing it. What will Lindsay do about the box? That’s to be revealed in a future volume. Jama-Everett (The Entropy of Bones) and Jennings (Parable of the Sower) have taken an innovative and satisfying premise in suitably macabre directions, each episode drawn by a different artist in vivid colors. Several backmatter essays expand on the historical underpinnings.