In the town of Malborg, Denmark, a sinister horror is afoot. Someone or something is killing the men of Malborg, and the only thread connecting them to each other is their obsession with a woman named Marlene Mortensen.
SLG Publishing is proud to announce Marlene, an erotic thriller from acclaimed Danish artist Peter Snejbjerg to be released in January 2006. This marks the first time any of Peter’s European work has been translated to English. While the exciting story line and dynamic art is enough to draw crowds of any ages, the book is not for the kiddies or the faint-of-heart.
”I had been working for a while on what you’d call adult horror comics, only they were actually very adult — very little cheescake and general nudity,” says Snejbjerg. “So I needed a project for letting off a little steam once in a while. I also wanted to do something set in a familiar Scandinavian setting, and the town on Malborg is actually modeled on the town where I grew up.”
As the story opens, a peeping Tom has been murdered in the local cemetery, his brains dashed on the ground by an unknown assailant. Adept detective Michael Joergensen has been assigned to the case, but as he unravels each facet of the mystery, he finds himself slowly and inexorably pulled towards the woman around whom all the chaos and death seems to revolve.
With its finely tuned narrative and deft character development, Marlene is clearly the product of a veteran artist and writer. Peter admits the process was not without its own challenges, though.
“This was a pet project that I worked on for the longest time,” he says. “Although I do pride myself with being a relatively fast artist, I am a slow and undisciplined writer. The basic idea of the story actually came to me in sort of a flash, drifting off to sleep one night, but wrestling it into some kind of coherent structure took forever, it seemed. The characters just simply wouldn’t go where I wanted them to from time to time.”
The visuals have a decidedly cinematic flair, evoking the feel of classic crime and horror titles from EC Comics. “Richard Corben and Berni Wrightson were what first got me seriously into American horror comics,” Snejbjerg explains, “and although it probably doesn’t show much in my drawings any more, I still see a lot of their type of cinematic storytelling in there.” The film-like pacing and detailed panels perfectly complement the mood set by Snejbjerg’s script.
So what is it about Marlene that makes her so irresistible and so dangerous? Is this simply a case of an innocent young woman caught in a maelstrom of evil, or is it something far, far darker?
Marlene is a story of fixation and terror written and illustrated by Peter Snejbjerg. The 48-page one-shot will be in stores in January 2005 and will retail for $3.95. It's available for pre-order now at comic stores, and a preview is on SLG Publishing's website, www.slavelabor.com.
Established in 1986, SLG Publishing is a San Jose, CA-based publisher of comics books and graphic novels. Operating under its imprints Slave Labor Graphics and Amaze Ink, SLG Publishing has distributed the work of such notable cartoonists as Jhonen Vasquez, Evan Dorkin and Andi Watson.
