The Idris File

An awkward young man discovers that his quiet seaside Welsh town harbors Nazi horrors in its haunted cemeteries, making for a historical graphic novel thriller that reads like The Banshees of Inisherin meets Raiders of the Lost Ark.

In Wales 1974, a fisherman inadvertently reels in a Nazi flag. Meanwhile, young Idris and his mother ride a train in the countryside. Idris’s mother has a new housekeeping job awaiting her in the small town of Bothelli, by the sea. Her new employer, a wealthy man named Mr. Miller, is confined to a wheelchair and beginning immediately upon their arrival, Mr. Miller’s unceasing demands as an employer leave the socially awkward Idris adrift in his new town, friendless. That is, until he meets the mysterious and profane Gwen in the local cemetery. When Idris shows Gwen a map that he found at Mr. Miller’s, it sucks them into a web of mystery and unimagined horrors.

As he did in his acclaimed 2018 graphic novel Dull Margaret, co-created with Jim Broadbent, Dix brings his world to life with his distinctive cartooning, weaving lumpy characters, earthy palettes, grim rumination, deadpan humor, supernatural elements, and dreary Welsh countryside into one of the gnarliest graphic novels of the year.