We’re through the looking-glass here, people, as I head back to the beginning of the alphabet and start diving into my graphic novels and collected editions!
The Absence by Martin Stiff (writer/artist).
Published by Titan Comics, cover dated March 2014.
I never plan on SPOILERS, but sometimes they must exist, so be aware! Be sure to click on the scans if you want to see them better!
Martin Stiff’s first comic was self-published in six issues from 2008 to 2013, but it works much better as a graphic novel, which is how Titan presented the book back in 2014. 
It’s a mystery set in post-World War II Britain, and it’s impressive that Stiff is so good his first time out of the gate.
In a brief prologue set in August 1945, a minister wakes up in his church during a horrific storm and and dies when part of the ground collapses, taking him with it. The church, we discover, is built on a tall seastack separated from the English mainland, and the bridge connecting it also collapses during the storm, so when the main story begins the following July, no one has been able to go to the church for months. In that July, Marwood Clay returns to his village after getting out of the army, and the townspeople certainly don’t want him there, as something happened before he left that made him a pariah. More than that, he has a horrific facial wound (you can see it there on the cover!), and he makes people very uncomfortable. After he’s been back a few months, another person comes to town – Robert Temple, who has purchased a large tract of land outside the town and is building a new house, one that the workmen find very unusual. How these two men come into contact with each other is the crux of the book.
Stiff takes his time building the mysteries and almost as long explaining them, which makes the book a slow fuse of tension, which works very well. 
Villagers are disappearing – not just the minister, which isn’t a mystery because of the storm and the placement of the church – and eventually, suspicions fall on Marwood. Early on, we learn that Temple worked for the government during the war doing some shady stuff, and eventually we discover that he knew of Marwood years earlier, even though he pretends not to. Why? Well, it’s complicated, naturally. We also find out that Marwood’s pregnant wife died before he went to war and the villagers, for some reason, blame him (which is why he’s a pariah). We also find out why the people are disappearing, and it’s both logical and a bit terrifying. There is, you might say, a lot going on in this book.
There are a lot of themes in this book, all of which tie deftly into the plot. The most important theme, perhaps, is the religious angle, which Stiff wisely doesn’t push too hard, allowing us to come to it gradually. Of course, the book begins with a big metaphorical lightning storm, as the town’s church cracks in two and the minister falls to his death in what could easily be seen as the depths of hell, but it’s germane to the plot, so it doesn’t strike us until later, when Stiff sprinkles in Christological symbols throughout. Clay is, naturally, the obvious Christ figure, as Stiff does some interesting things with him. 
He returns from war horribly scarred, and when he tells Temple about his experiences in the war, it’s clear he feels like he’s been resurrected, as he was in a paratrooper unit that got wiped out, leaving him the only survivor. This weighs heavily on him, and it dictates some of his actions throughout the book. Meanwhile, the tragedy he experienced – the death of his wife – led to his unjust – we think – persecution by the villagers, and when he returns, one of the villagers wonders why he’s alive when her son is dead, because Marwood is a “monster” and her son was good. During the course of the narrative, the villagers’ attitude toward him shifts, thanks to something he does that appears a bit miraculous, and they begin to appreciate him and welcome him back into the fold. There’s also his flashbacks, in which a doctor speaks to him in German, so perhaps he was persecuted during the war, too, as a prisoner (which wouldn’t be unique, but with everything else that Stiff tells us about Clay, it ties into his Christ aspect). It’s an interesting angle to take, because it’s unclear early on whether Marwood should be persecuted or not – we don’t think so, but it’s in the back of our mind, and that’s something that Stiff understands about Jesus – if he came today, there would be many, many people who would be willing to denigrate him, even those who claim to be Christian. 
Clay is somewhat sympathetic, but he’s not completely warm and cuddly, and it makes the tension of his return hum a bit more.
Tied into this is the idea of post-traumatic stress, which Marwood certainly suffers from. The sign of his trauma is on his face, and it’s clear that his mind is traumatized as well – he doesn’t remember a lot of his experience, and what he does remember – jumping out of a plane, the German doctor – is unpleasant. He has trouble relating to the people in the village, and bonds with a young boy, at first because Thomas – the boy – is the only one who will talk to him, because he’s too young to remember why all the villagers hate him, and then, even though he doesn’t need any encouragement, because his mother – who still hates Marwood – asks him to, so Thomas can see that there are “monsters” in the world and remember that people love him. It’s a twisted motivation, and to be fair to Clay, he genuinely likes Thomas’s company, so he’s not doing Thomas’s mother any favors. 
As we learn about what happened before the war, we see that his trauma reaches even further back, to the night his wife and unborn child died. Of course that would be traumatic, but it is far more important than we realize. It not only left a mark on Marwood, it left a mark on the villagers. They, too, are suffering from PTSD. Not only do we have the event that killed Marwood’s wife, which was traumatic for them, if not to the degree that it was traumatic for him, but for many of them, the war never ended because their children never came home. Then, of course, there’s the death of the pastor and the disappearance of other townspeople – the villagers are already mourning, and now, when they think they can move on with their lives, they have more to mourn, plus the presence in their midst of not only a reminder of the horrors of war, thanks to his injury, but of the fact that their loved one is dead. It becomes clear that the town needs some sort of redemptive act as much as Clay does, and the two sides are locked together until something can either shatter them or heal them.
Temple’s involvement in the war is part of the story, too, and Stiff does a nice job contrasting the two of them. Clay doesn’t remember much, while Temple remembers things all too well. 
Marwood fought; Robert was in intelligence, and while the villagers might not like Marwood, they’re also wary about Robert, who does shady things throughout the book. Robert is a mathematics genius, and this is both a blessing and a curse for him, as he has strange abilities that seem to be almost supernatural but can probably be explained by math. His connections are vital for the town’s survival, and he also seems to be condescending toward most of the villagers, but his heart is in the right place. The house he is building is odd, but it’s part of a plan he has, and Stiff does a marvelous job leading us down the path with these two characters, who feel destined for a stand-off. When it comes, Stiff makes sure that it’s unlike what we expect, but he’s done such a good job not only creating these characters but enmeshing them in the plot that what happens is logical, even if it’s unexpected. Temple doesn’t exactly suffer from PTSD, but he’s still under stress, and he believes that in this town, he can relieve not only his own demons, but the demons of the town and of Marwood himself. Why he cares is a big part of the book.
Stiff explores other themes, too, which are intwined with the idea of trauma and how we handle it. The government looms large in the book, naturally, because of Clay fighting for it and Temple working for it, and Stiff leaves open the question of whether the government is benevolent or not. 
We’re inclined, these days, to think of the government as antithetical to common decency, but in post-war Britain, this was not the prevailing thought, and the way Stiff plays with those expectations is done well. Robert’s boss, Taylor, shows up occasionally, and Temple thinks he’s a monster but Stiff shows us that it’s more complicated than that. Yes, Taylor is a spymaster, to a degree, so he has to make hard decisions and play dice with others’ lives, but he’s also trying to do the best thing for the country, and that includes its people. Robert’s condescension elides with a classist theme, as he’s employing salt-of-the-earth type workers, represented by Mr. Pitman, a Mario Bros. lookalike foreman who thinks his boss is barmy but always tries to do his best to please him. We’re introduced to Robert and Pitman at the same time, as they’re having a conversation that’s punctuated by a traumatic event, a conversation that foreshadows some things but also allows us to understand the differences between the two men. Pitman is more of the village, while Temple certainly is not. Clay’s departure for service isn’t couched in terms of wanting to leave the small town to see the wide world, but it’s alluded to, and one of Marwood’s friends, Helen, is the post-war embodiment of that desire, as she goes to work at the pub (much to the consternation of her grandmother, who raised her after her mother’s death) and is using that as a springboard to get out of town. 
The juxtaposition is interesting: Clay has been out in the world and wants to return, because he feels safe in the village even if the villagers hate him, while Helen has not been out in the world and wants to experience it, even with the example of Marwood and his disfigurement (“This is what happens when you leave the safety of the village,” in other words) in front of her. Stiff does a nice job contrasting the two of them. Another good contrast is between the strange and the mundane. This is not a completely grounded book, as some things are a bit askew, but Stiff keeps us guessing about them. Some of the strange things turn out to have very logical explanations, while some of the things that seem normal end up being quite bizarre, and we’re never sure which is which, which keeps us on our toes and adds to the general tension of the book. Just when we think we understand what’s going on in the book, Stiff sends it in a different direction, and just when we think we can trust either Clay or Temple or someone else, we’re shown a bit more context and we have to rethink things. It’s very well done by Stiff.
The art in the book, while raw, matches the tone very well, as it’s angular and even jagged, making it look as if the landscape, the buildings, and even the people are capable of ripping everything to shreds. Marwood’s horrific mouth injury is the central motif of the art, and while the lack of color in the book makes it look slightly less jarring than it does on the cover, it’s still creepy, and Stiff does a nice job with it. 
Marwood covers it up quite often, as it upsets people, and of course, we can read it as a metaphor for what he’s keeping from the villagers and what they themselves don’t want to confront. Around Thomas, the boy, Marwood loosens up, as Thomas doesn’t judge him, so he never feels the need to hide. Temple’s house, as it rises, becomes a symbol of the new, the post-war optimism, even as it becomes something slightly more sinister as it’s completed, and Stiff contrasts its clean lines and even sterile mien with the shabbiness of the village, which has seen better days. Stiff uses his brush wonderfully to add texture to wooden surfaces, stone houses, and the fields surrounding the town, but when he gets precise with his line work, he gives us such beautiful drawings as the stained-glass window in the church of Saint George, a nicely apt metaphor, as it turns out. His storytelling is excellent – it can be a talky book, but Stiff manages the panel layouts quite well so that the text never obscures the art, and he does a nice job bulding tension and horror as Marwood flashes back to his time in the war. Stiff uses lighter lines and lighter grays in the flashbacks, making them hazier, and when they intrude on Marwood’s present, he does an excellent job showing how badly they’re affecting him. The characters beyond Clay are interesting, as well, as Stiff makes sure to give them personalities even if they’re only in the book briefly. Temple is a perfectly formed bureaucrat, which makes it easy to believe he was too valuable to waste on the front lines, and Stiff makes sure he’s always a bit pompous, even as he warms to the town, so he always stands out among the more working-class types like Pitman or even Helen, who’s trying to become more cosmopolitan. Taylor, Temple’s boss, is old and decrepit, and it’s easy to see in him the horror of the war and the casualness with which men sent boys to die, even if Taylor was involved in other things during the conflict. 
Stiff’s art has gotten better over the years, but this is still a very interesting comic to look at.
I don’t want to give too much away, so I hope I was still able to give you some reasons to check this out. There is a lot going on in the book, and Stiff does an excellent job bringing a lot of strands together. It’s the kind of book that makes you think, because it’s not a war comic – one that puts us in the action – but a post-war comic, as Stiff wants us to ask what happens when the fighting is over and people return to their lives and the government has a whole new set of things to think about and machines to change the world with. The characters in this book have been through their own crucibles, but the problem surviving that is that life goes on, and you need to figure out how to live in the new reality. Stiff does a very good job examining this crisis, while still writing an intriguing and unsettling mystery. You can get the comic at the link below, from which we get a tiny percentage even if you don’t buy that specific book, or you can get it from Titan, presumably, if you’re anti-Amazon. It’s a gripping comic.
Hey, take a look at the archives, kids! You know you want to!
