Review by Frank Plowright

Sleep starts with Jonathan sleeping in. Catching up, he discovers that while he slept some sort of monster hit town. People died. As he interacts with others in the town, we learn Jonathan is put upon and ignored at best, and considered a sad specimen at worst, what with still working at the local coffee shop at his age.

This is drawn in a disorienting manner by Zander Cannon, in greytones with some items highlighted in red, like Jonathan’s specs, and blood. If you’re of the type to notice, you’ll see he and his surroundings can seem disproportionate, and the longer Sleep continues the more disasters seem to rack up around the town, with Jonathan becoming convinced he’s somehow responsible.

Cannon freely shows us the results without ever showing us the cause, as we’re following Jonathan around, each new chapter beginning with him waking up again. This isn’t Groundhog Day, though, as it’s always somewhere different, and three chapters in there’s a definitive attempt to defy fate.

Atmosphere is key to Sleep. The art supplies a unique look, with the sparing use of colour unsettling for highlighting what’s missing. Even when increasing the colour toward the end Cannon still restricts it, just increasing the general quantity of red, not the variety. The suspense is increased by the viewpoint to everything being entirely that of Jonathan. He suspects he somehow transforms into a beast when he goes to sleep, and circumstantial evidence adds weight to the theory, but crucially, we only ever see him, never any beast.

Plenty of other disturbing events occur beyond the nightly violence, but they’re more personal in nature. Eventually it’ll become apparent that despite the dressing, Cannon’s possibly not referencing a werewolf as per his pitch synopsis, but an alternate version of a character very familiar to comic readers. Once that drops into place we’re given a completely different form of horror. It’s impressionistic and Cannon’s art changes to reflect it, at times taking his cue from Harvey Kurtzman in offering an alternative view of events we’ve already heard about, but not fully known.

Gripping and intelligent, Sleep is original horror based on humanity, and becomes stronger the longer it continues.