A shade in a leather jacket thrusts a decapitated head towards the reader -- its lolling tongue and dripping viscera a promise of what's…

A shade in a leather jacket thrusts a decapitated head towards the reader -- its lolling tongue and dripping viscera a promise of what's inside.

Smell the page.

The astringent chemical stink of cheap inks curls your delicate nostril hairs.

But, below that: vanilla, must. The pulpy fragrance of paper.

Smell harder.

You bury your nose in the gutter, paper smooth against either cheek.

Reeeally get up in there.

Wood, linen... a hint of almond.

Slip out juuust a bit of tongue...

The wet pink tip protrudes from between your lips, like a tentative worm emerging from the earth after a rainstorm, and presses against the printed page.

It tastes like nothing at all.

I'm not sure what I expected.

In your tainted homesick memories, you can taste your favorite books on your tongue as you read them by flashlight under the bedcovers.

But... vanilla! Almonds!

Coincidentally, the final words of the late Operant GESTURE, zeroed out by a cyanide-laced wafer.

Let's keep this between you and me, Hombre.

The Hombre, damp with saliva, blurs into a blob of running inks.

Right, well, that's a normal amount of smelling.

You lower the comic from your face, pulling back until the blurred black and white coalesces into legible images.

Ahhh, yeah. That's the good stuff.

The comic inks aren't even going to give you a head rush. But the nostalgia factor is undeniable.

This is no time for sensory distractions.

The comic crinkles satisfyingly in your hands as you turn it over.

Skim the story.

Black-and-white panels whip by, almost animated like a flip-book by the motion of your thumb.

A word bubble filled with scratchy handwriting conjures a raspy voice in your mind's ear -- 'A polyp on the perineum of society...'

Alright, this my thing.

A comic for big kids, who can handle big kid words and drawings.

A clawed fist hitting a pulped face, the violence itself off-panel but somehow made visible by the suggestion of the word 'CRIIISH' in a sickly bold font...

A figure -- man, woman, or demon, it's unclear -- being consumed by shadows, swallowed alive, screaming...

Did the Ombre Hombre just eat that guy?

It wasn't a 'guy'. It was a Moon Cultist -- part of the wicked cabal responsible for killing his companion and lover Aurelia Mist, the healer with the transplanted hands of a dual-wielding assassin.

Nice, the Hombre gets ass and revenge.

At least he did, before Aurelia was murdered by the Moon Cult.

This isn't even the best arc. Wait until he finally masters shadow puppetry in volume six.

What's the deal with these Moon Cultists?

They are the enemies of shadow, led by the malignant Imago Jones -- the Hombre's eternal arch-foe.

That's enough for me.

The man of the night occupies a world beyond conventional taste and morality. Very few can accompany him there.

Keep reading.

Take in the artwork.

You pause on a splash panel, huge, taking up the entire two-page spread:

The Hombre stands in a pool of swirling water, a tiny ocean floating in a void of liminal space. The towers of the Sunlit City stretch towards the empty sky, their basements flooded, massive fish splayed atop their roofs, gasping for air.

Before him, a red cloak -- in the shape of his own silhouette, his own body bag -- rises out of the water, inviting him to enfold himself inside.

I can't pull my eyes away.

The longer you look, the more details are revealed to you -- a tiny face hidden in the brushstrokes that define a pool of water, the intricate brickwork on a horizon-line building.

The artist has broken the boundaries of the panel to traverse time and space, the Hombre slithering through a chiarascuro dreamscape.

You've never seen anything like this. Few people have. This is New Art.

What is 'New Art'?

This book has only just risen from the hand-to-grimy-hand distribution system of the counter-culture to the point where a few magazine stands will consider carrying it.

How long can something like this last?

All indications say it has about three years left before it's cancelled after sales dip and the artist consistently fails to make deadline.

Or, worse: It gets adapted into a film.

This is very scary. I'm having a physiological reaction.

It's a nightmare, sketched onto the page even as the details slip away from the artist's memory.

FORTUNATELY SUCH SUCH MEGA-VIOLENT CONTENT IS BANNED IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLICS.

Maybe not my thing after all.

You've barely scratched the surface of New Art. Wait till you see what's not getting published: Psychedelic mythological comedies. Non-linear slice-of-life horror shows. Funny animals that fuck.

Check out the centrefold.

Flipping the magazine open to where its bindings hold the pages together, your eyes are filled with a horizontally-oriented image: the comic's glorious cover, blown up in size.

Wait! There's no neatly perforated line to guide your tearing. And the binding's flimsy -- any operation you attempt, without the proper precautions, will become a dissection.

This isn't a poster, it's just a page.

It's poster-adjacent. Poster-esque!

Hardly. The paper's all wrong. A poster would be on 130-170 GSM semi-gloss to minimize reflexivity for higher impact -- a nice medium weight stock.

But this is 4 color process on newsprint. Cheaper, lower quality, and infinitely more delicate.

Well, that's disappointing.

Better to get the whole comic framed instead. Under some nice UV-resistant glass, the linework would really stand out...

Extract the Hombre.

You press the palm of one hand gently but firmly against the magazine's almost non-existent spine.

Pinch the double-page between your fingers and pull.

Careful. Slower.

The pressure is just right -- instead of the paper tearing around its bindings, the staples themselves bend, open for you, and give way.

Pop-pop-pop.

Hold your breath.

Your hand is steady, but the staples' resistance is absolute.

With the final staple freed -- zinc-plated steel wire surrendered at your hands -- the book's spine finally collapses.

The pages, loose, unbound, come apart in your hands, the pristine centrefold clutched between thumb and forefinger.

Stick your tongue out.

Your concentration sharpens to a laser point. The staples begin to buckle.

Squint.

You can see the paper fibres gradually surrendering to your onslaught.

You clutch the center pages in one hand, balancing the magazine in your opposite palm.

Give the paper a gentle tug.

The staples, seemingly so flimsy, refuse to budge. An ugly fissure appears in the paper at the top of the centrefold.

Stop, stop! You're killing him!

Stop tearing.

The damage has already been done. Any value this volume might have had on the collector's market: obliterated in a second.

Keep going.

With a hideous rip, the two-page spread tears like tissue paper right down the centre of the panel.

You've accomplished what archvillain Imago Jones and a hundred Moon's Consorts couldn't -- you've decapitated the Ombre Hombre.

He's probably immortal or something, right?

You saw the cover -- losing your head is serious business.

Another asset undone by your recklessness.

I can tape it. No one will know the difference.

There's no putting this back together.

This is the publisher's fault. The printing is shit.

It's an independent comic. They've got money to pay the artist and do a small run every month, and not much else.

It's a testament to the Ombre Hombre's popularity that they've been able to afford to keep it running this long.

Rip it out!

Put the comic away.

The deity acknowledges its supplicant; your heart rate ratchets up a joyful notch.

Looks metal.

Jagged metal. Independently published metal. OMBRE HOMBRE, VOL 5 ISS 8.

You know... these kind of magazines often have illustrated centrefolds... or detachable posters...

At the cost of its resell value. Condition: DEFILED.

The pads of your fingers itch.

Ugh, deeply lame.

And yet you're still staring at it. OMBRE HOMBRE, VOL 5 ISS 8.