TRIGGER WARNING: the comic has topics of suicide, depression, drugs, and underage drinking.

Saturday, May 4th was Free Comic Book Day. Free Comic Book Day is an event held annually on the first Saturday of May. It is meant to attract new readers to independent comic book stores by giving out free single issue comics.

Our local comic shop (LCS) here is Fairbanks is one such independent comic shop that participates in Free Comic Book Day and I was one of the first in line to check it out. I picked up “Dying Inside” co-written by Pete Wentz and Hannah Klein with art by Lisa Sterle. This issue is issue #0 because it is more of a preview of the book rather than a true issue.

On the cover, the words “Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz” are splayed in fancy text. I’m sure there are many people who know who Pete is, but I’m certainly not one of them, so if there is anyone like me reading this, Pete Wentz is the lyricist and bassist for Fall Out Boy, and he has been since their beginning.

Picture of Issue #0 cover taken by Tailon

Dying Inside opens with our protagonist, Ash, talking to the reader. The reader comes to find that Ash is a teen living with her mom in Brooklyn and her biggest defining feature is that she is a hardcore fan of a musician named Elliot Smith, whom his fans affectionately refer to as their “Emo king.”

She goes on to describe how she and Elliot have so much in common.

Picture of a page from Dying Inside taken by Tailon R.

Elliot is a musician, Ash is a musician; Elliot loves drugs, Ash loves drugs. Elliot hates himself, Ash hates herself. See how much they have in common.

Then we get to the meat of this story. The point of Ash having this conversation with the reader is to divulge the fact that she wants to kill herself. She’s chronically depressed and tired, tired of the lows in her life, the doctors she has to see, and the meds she has to take, and so she just wants to end it all. Ash talks about Elliot because prior to the events of this issue, Elliot killed himself, specifically by stabbing. This inspired Ash to end her life the same way Elliot did.

Picture of a panel from Dying Inside taken by Tailon R.

So, she goes and buys a dagger (off of “Getsy”), but the thing about this dagger is that it’s a magic dagger. Well, at least, that’s implied.

The next few pages show Ash attempting to stab herself, but she can’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she decides to tape the dagger to her bedroom door and run into it, to not give her psyche any chance to stop her, which proves to be successful…

…or does it?

After running into the blade, she wakes up healed and to her mom barging into her room trying to get her to come down for dinner, completely unaware that her daughter just attempted suicide. Her mom leaves the room and Ash is left alone to ask the question, what the heck happened?

Thus, the end of issue #0.

I didn’t care for this issue all that much. I could not relate with all the angst. That is to say, I can’t relate to a character that is so edgy that she would lie about the fact that she wasn’t underage drinking when she was and lies about the fact that she is just consuming “CBD” and “anti-depressants” when she is really doing drugs (Ash talked about all this when she was discussing all that she and Elliot had in common). Since I couldn’t relate with the character it made the whole thing fall flat to me.

The other problem I had with this issue is that it seemed to glorify her behavior rather than talk about the issues that her behavior brings to her life. She’s depressed and tired of life but there was no hint of a suggestion that some aggravating factors could be the fact that she is drinking and doing drugs rather than dealing with her problems or leaning on the people around her to help her deal with them.

Another problem I have with this issue, is that as a first issue, it doesn’t give us enough of the plot to understand what this story is about. I had to read an interview with one of the writers to understand that the dagger was magic and that it did something to Ash (I write “something”, so I don’t give away too much in case you want to read this series). The reader also doesn’t get the idea that this series is going to attempt to delve into combatting Ash’s hopeless view of life (this was also in the interview, which I will discuss in a little bit).

Despite these issues, I think this first issue does do some good things. I did not find the character of Ash boring, angsty maybe, but certainly not boring. I even find Ash witty and her rebellious attitude somewhat charming.

This series is intentionally comedic and I did find some moments genuinely funny, like how Ash describes how she will kill herself without any significant others around and bemoans the fact that she couldn’t even get a boyfriend to watch her end her life even if she wanted to…I chuckled at that. There were also four panels devoted to Ash doing math in her head with drawings of circles, cones, cylinders, and graphs with formulas associated with those drawings, which Ash ends by saying “You do the math”. As a math person myself and someone who loves wordplay, I found quite humorous.

I also genuinely think the way that the character talks to the reader to explain the situation is fun. It definitely adds to the comedic vibe this issue was going for.

Let’s not forget the art of this comic. I actually really enjoyed it. It’s mostly black and white but there is a lot of this pale blue color for the shadows that makes this particular style really stand out to me. There was also an intense shade of pink when Ash pulled the dagger out of her desk drawer, a color made all the more vibrant against the black and white I became accustomed to throughout the issue, which was also fun to see. So, shout out to Lisa Sterle.

I mentioned earlier that I read an interview with one of the writers of this comic and I wanted to point out a quote from it. This is how co-writer Hannah Klein describes this series.

It's about a young girl overwhelmed by her depression who tries to kill herself but a "cursed" (aka blessed in my opinion) knife gives her the gift of immortality and from there we dive into themes about finding your community, safe practices in mental health spaces, the intense love of female friendship, and bodily autonomy. We packed a lot into this book!

Hannah Klein, interview on Games Radar

Now, I don’t know about you, but that is not what I got from this first issue. It was only after I read this issue that I realized that this was essentially an excerpt from the entire book rather than a standalone issue. It’s like if a preview of a movie only showed the first five minutes of the movie, you’re not going to get the point of the movie or the direction the movie is going from it.

I will say, Klein’s description of what the book is going for does sound very appealing to me. I think having a book delving into the need for community is really important, considering that, from my vantage point, our culture today is struggling from a lack of community. I’m definitely looking forward to how the book is going to tackle those solutions.

Be on the lookout for this series when it is released on September 17th, 2024. You can preorder it now at Vault Comics.

Have fun and enjoy reading,

Tailon, co-host of The Comic Panel

Fall Out Boy Goes Comic Book: Dying Inside