Beth Hetland is not necessarily a name most horror fans have yet heard of, but her upcoming solo debut graphic novel Tender might just change that. With a bachelor’s degree in fine arts (with emphasis on comics) from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Masters degree in the same field from The Center for Cartoon Studies, Hetland is well-versed in the world of comics and graphic novels (not that she makes a distinction between the two). Besides being a professor and teaching various comic-related courses at her old alma mater of SAIC, Hetland is a prolific artist with a vast body of published work dating all the way back to 2012.

Her latest book, Tender, explores modern gender roles, the pressure that society puts on women, as well as the pressure women put on themselves. It digs into the existential dread of getting everything that you thought you wanted and still not being satisfied. It is a strong debut with powerful visual storytelling and a well-crafted storyline. Hetland was kind enough to take a moment of her busy schedule to talk with Diabolique about her work and her influences.

The story of Tender revolves around Carolanne. She wants it all. The perfect home, the perfect wedding, the perfect family. All the things that everyone else in her social circle seems to have. But underneath the mundane exterior of social media envy and the strive for self-betterment, something else is brewing. The closer she gets to her ideal lifestyle, the more the pressure for it to be absolutely perfect mounts, sending Carolanne’s already fragile mind to a nightmarish tailspin.

Hetland has averted the obvious clichés of a female-led body horror. While pregnancy plays a part in the story, it is not the main focus of the horror. While we chat, Hetland admits that the idea of giving birth is a subject matter that offers an ample amount of material for the genre, but she herself was more interested in examining the kind of self-sacrificing nature of motherhood and how it can become an all-consuming force, even to the detriment of the mother. Social media could have also been an obvious choice for the major catalyst to push Carolanne over the edge, but Hetland has pushed these issues a bit further. Throughout the story, you can find small hints of the kind of seemingly harmless little occurrences that might simply pass most people by, but for Carolanne, digging deep and leaving a mark only enhances the pressure she is putting herself under and the deluded ideas that she has of perfection.

With scenarios that are eminently recognizable, Carolanne’s story manages to get under the readers’ skin in a very real way. Much of this is thanks to Hetland’s ability to write delightfully realistic characters. Not only does she capture the mundanity and the joy of everyday, ordinary life with her visual storytelling, but Hetland also has a real talent for writing dialogue in a way that is relatable and authentic. It is easy to put yourself in the situations that Hetland has set for her protagonist and find sympathy for Carolanne even when her actions veer into the horrific. The fractured structure of the storyline supports this beautifully and helps the reader to get much closer to Carolanne’s mindset. This was a purposeful decision by the artists, as Hetland explains:

“Initially the story was linear, but that didn’t feel very engaging, and I felt making the story linear would make the reader lose some of their empathy for Carolanne. It felt too straight forward, and I wanted to play more with the inevitability of the path that she’s on and the story to cycle around in way by dropping little hints along the way.”

Hetlands’s artwork is cartoonishly neat, with plenty of detail to make each page an interesting read. Most of the story is told in bluish monochromes, further cementing a sense of everyday humdrum life. Just as the story is every now and then intercepted with beautifully colorful and wonderfully grotesque dream sequences, the calming blues of normal life get a repeated flash of color that helps to set the mood or accentuate the little, horrible details of Carolanne’s madness. While Hetland’s artwork and use of the page are thoroughly enjoyable all the way through, some of the best parts of the book come in the form of the aforementioned dream or, more accurately, nightmare sequences. They have a fantastically cinematic quality to them that makes it easy to see how they would play out as moving images. You can almost hear the soundtrack that would accompany them, which is no small feat for a compilation of drawn, still images. This comes as no great surprise, though, when you learn more about Hetland’s artistic background and how she got into drawing comics in the first place, as she explains:

“My introduction to comics was reading Sunday comics like Peanuts and Fox Trot; I’m not ashamed to say that I was reading Garfield and Cathy, you know, the classics. I actually wanted to do animation for a very long time, so all through high school and even in college, I was more interested in animating rather than comics. That was until I took a class on screen printing, comics, and narrative textiles, which kind of rocked my world. It really opened my eyes to comics and how much more efficient than animation they are. Animation is great, but as a one-person operation, I want to be able to control every aspect of my work, and comics allow that to happen much better than animation. It also feeds into my more tactile interests like bookmaking and screen printing, so it allowed me to explore that as well.”

The cartoonish drawing style may not be something that most people would instinctively connect with the body horror genre. When it comes to body horror and comics, most minds perhaps pivot towards artists like Junji Ito and the complex, intricate pieces of art that he produces. However, Hetland’s style fits the story that she is telling perfectly. The simplistic style creates a wonderful contrast to the slow-burning horror that underlines the story.

Before Tender, Hetland worked the traditional way, drawing by hand, but her latest book was created digitally. She did not, however, want to compromise on the grittiness that comes with a hand-made drawing. Even with all the possibilities of creating a sleek, immaculate piece of work that digital workspace offers, she opted to keep a certain roughness to her work. This is evident in the shading and coloring, which all look like they have been hand-drawn. The influence of some of her favorite artists also comes through in her artwork. Hetland expands:

“One artist whose work I really love and who has helped to inspire this work is Charles Burns. His book Black Hole (also in the body horror genre), is a very engaging, very interesting, very exciting piece of work. In a completely different kind of genre, I love Eleanor Davis whose work is very versatile, with powerful stories. She cartoons with her whole heart which I find very powerful. I also feel like I should talk about David Mazzucchelli and, specifically his book Asterios Polyp which is incredibly interesting in the book-making context. Every single decision he’s made is so precise and so thoughtful, all the way down to how the physical book was produced. All three of those people approach comics as literature and not just as comics as many people maybe still understands them to be.”

While Hetland’s work has previously been in different genres, the sparks for a horror have been smoldering away in the background. According to her, the seeds for Tender were already there a decade ago and have slowly been made into reality in the past six years or so.

“From an outside perspective, it might seem like an abrupt change of genres because my previous work, Half Asleep, was very different in a lot of ways. It was collaborative (with Kyle O’Connell), it was sci-fi, it was coming-of-age and it was intended for a younger audience. However, in my more experimental, private work, the ones that I don’t actually sell, that I just make to give away for free or just to exercise the demons, a lot of those started to be body horror from about 2013 onwards. So, I already had five or six little mini horror stories that played with a couple of different motifs that then showed up in Tender. Things like pregnancy, like my identity as a female-bodied person, an unreliable narrator and being gaslit. The very early seeds for Tender were starting to grow in 2013, but the actual work for the book didn’t start until 2018, when we finished Half Asleep. I knew the next thing I wanted to do was solo, and I knew I wanted it to be horror. “

When asked about specific horror influences, some predictable names pop up, but also a few surprises...

“I really love Junji Ito, Uzumaki, and the Enigma of Amigara Fault are some of my favourites. Emily Caroll is another one. It is not necessarily body horror, more thriller or ghost horror, but I like the way she plays with panels and pages. In all honesty, most of my horror influences come from films. Obviously, I have to mention Cronenberg, but also films like Suspiria (1977) and the palette that Dario Argento worked with, but also the 2018 version and the themes that it had. Also, Possession (1981), as well as Raw (2016) and Titane (2021). Those are just few of the major touch stones that helped to inform this work.”

Like many body horror stories before it, Tender stays true to one of the trademarks of the genre with a bleaker than bleak ending. This was important for Hetland, as she wanted to conclusion to be as horrific and uncomfortable as possible.

“Early on in the writing process I had this diagram and it has two different way for the story to go and I really wanted by the end of the story for the audience to be the most horrified and for Carolanne to be the most transcendent.  I wanted that dissonance because that is a really uncomfortable spot to be in. I wanted the reader to be uncomfortable with the choices Carolanne has made and the conclusions she has drawn, and at the same time for her to be so deep in it that state that she is like an unearthly being and for the reader just be left horrified.”

When asked what she plans to do next, Hetland’s mind is on the upcoming release date of Tender and a book tour that will follow. While she will undoubtedly be kept busy with promoting her work for the next few months, it will be interesting to see what she will come up next. I, for one, will certainly be keeping an eye out for that.

Tender is out on March 12^th, 2024, and is available from Fantagraphics Books. For more info, please visit: www.fantagraphics.com