I’m not sure how the Hollow Press edition of Voodoo Forest (2022) got on my radar, but it did (and thank goodness, because through it I found Vermis). The first version appeared in 2015 and was the product of a decade of work. This edition includes additional plates and was resequenced. The back matter says it’s the project’s definitive form.

It’s impressive! There are 46 full-page illustrations, each accompanied by a second, smaller one, and one 2-page spread. In a lot of ways, Blanche’s style seems unchanged, which is a curious thing for an artist with a career spanning multiple decades (compare to Ian Miller, who has had a number of stylistic periods). It’s strange to see his work without any direct references to the worlds of Warhammer. There are subtle, perhaps reflexive visual references, like the way the demon woman’s claw hands resemble the canon Slaaneshi demonette, or how all the secondary illustrations depict a variety of folk carrying banners. Those banners serve as cryptic titles. Many are quotes from Macbeth. I assume many others reference other works, but I haven’t quite figured them out. The doomed atmosphere of the Scottish play sort of overrides all other associations for me (though there is very little in the visuals that would make me think of Shakespeare, though there is one man in a kilt).

Taken as a whole, the thing is unsettling, a sort of dream or nightmare landscape that clearly conforms to some organizing principal, but the logic of which remains obscure. There is not much gore or violence, but violence seems imminent in nearly all the plates. I would not want to explore this particular forest, but I am glad to have it on my shelf.

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There are two things that really make Vermis come to a diseased sort of life. The first is the decision to arrange the book as if it were a strategy guide for a videogame that doesn’t exist. This allows for the introduction of little icons and hints at mechanical systems without committing to building them, which is an enticement to brains like mine to figure out how they might work. And by providing level maps and strats for boss fights and profiles of magic items, I wind up playing the game on a meta level, reflexively, through the act of reading. This sensation is strange and unique and made for one of the most memorable book-experiences I’ve had in a long time.

The other thing is the texture of the art, the way everything is buried under pixelation, cathode grain, moire ripples and other distortions. It unifies all the book’s visuals in a sort of murkiness that add an almost painful sense of mystery and danger and inscrutability to the narrative.

Vermis is a dark masterpiece of creeping dread, and anyone who tells you it isn’t a game to be played isn’t to be trusted.

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