Instead of printing the illustrations for his comic book, Greek artist Spyros Verykios spent two years painting them. All of the visual components in his new 43-page comic, I don’t want to dream, are original oil paintings, in which the artist incorporates a chilling combination of neo expressionism and Pop art. The comic is described as a metaphysical horror story that follows the subjects of an experiment involving mind expanding drugs. Verykios creates chilling surrealist illustrations of the narrative that often blur the lines between scary bedtime stories and reality. The works in this series resemble those pitch-black levels in Resident Evil with the same unnerving ghoulish aesthetic brandished in the Dead Space franchise. The paintings are framed in their original form as sequential, juxtaposed panels representing individual scenes in the story. Verykios fits dialogue and descriptive prose directly onto the work or in the white space in between panels. I don’t want to dream will be printed in its entirety in the next volume 36/37 of CBK Comics‘s international comic art magazine, C’est Bon Anthology.
Check out more pieces of the story below:
Videos by VICE
The I don’t want to dream exhibition is on at the Hybriden in Malmo, Sweden from now until May 25th. Learn more about the exhibition on Facebook and be sure to check out more work by Spyros Verykios on his Behance.
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