Writer, Artist, Letterer & Cover Artist: Adam Szym
Publisher: Oni Press
Price: $33.99
Release Date: September 24, 2025
Sometimes, we experience things we cannot explain. They defy
reason. We think we see events as they unfold. But there is always more going
on than we realize. What happens when we get drawn into events we don't
understand? Let's leap into Little Visitor & Other Abductions HC and see!
Little Visitor: Story
Not every country has the funds and resources to mount
first-class motion pictures. But every government, no matter how repressive,
must pacify its populace. So when Steven Spielberg's big movie about a little
alien becomes a global sensation, another country mounts a similar production.
Whether this movie will fill the cinemas or merely compete
with the VHS tapes slipping past its borders, the cast rallies around this
small production. No one seems quite clear on whether the movie will be an
approved nationalistic vision of E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, or if it will
become a unique artistic achievement. One thing that mystifies everyone is that
the government agent assigned to the project insists they use one boy for the
lead role.
As Adam Szym shows the remembrances of the cast, Moriz tells
how he tried to produce a quality picture despite the low budget. Linda
remembers befriending Kostya, the boy chosen for the lead role. Yeva remembers
how hard Anatoly worked designing the sets and the alien costume. Now, the
citizens of this country enjoy more freedoms than before. Yet a mystery still
surrounds this beleaguered production.
Little Visitor: Art
Adam Szym portrays his first story in Little Visitor &
Other Abductions HC as a docudrama. While interviewing people in the present,
panels reveal the filming process. The panels often shield the top of their
young star’s face, while Anatoly's first design for the alien doesn't seem
scary. But as the crew looks back on the production with mixed feelings, scenes
none of them saw explain the mysteries of this haunted production.
A Cordial Invitation: Story
In this second story in Little Visitor & Other
Abductions HC, Luisa stands beside her father's truck. Evening has fallen, and
she awaits his return. But when an hour passes, she takes matters into her own
hands. Luisa marches up the road to the mansion and demands they reunite her
with her father.
Luisa is not an unkind or disobedient child. But financial
hardship has separated her family, and she yearns for the day they can be
reunited. Even her father singing a Christmas tune is too painful for her. In a
few hours, the New Year will be upon them. But how much of it will they have to
spend apart, until her father can find work, a new place to live, and the rest
of her family can pack up and rejoin them?
In the mansion, Luisa meets another family. It is larger
than hers and has a different structure. The people there welcome her. Perhaps
they even planned Luisa's appearance. But Luisa will have to give up everything
she knows and embrace a radically different lifestyle if she accepts their
invitation.
A Cordial Invitation: Art
Highly detailed penciling shows Luisa, her father, and the
truck that represents their hopes for the future. Most of the vehicles parked
outside the mansion appear more recent than her father's truck. The immense
mansion seems more like a grand civic center or an opera house than the richest
person's home. Yet as she enters the vast building with a modern exterior, the
lobby features fluted columns, and a woman in an alcove ushers her up the
gently circling staircase.
While gray tones portray the outside world and highlight the
interior architecture, the people she meets wear black clothes and speckled
insectile masks. The stone on a woman's ring reveals a vast number of
interlinked parts in Little Visitor & Other Abductions HC. Yet when the
story rewinds to show her father's journey, a similar black stone showcases an
organic version of the one on the ring.
Frolicker: Story
A young man reaches his eighteenth birthday in the shadow of
his late brother. Left with nothing but his journal, he cherishes his brother's
musings. While he drifts away from his society, he meets another young man and
his sister. The sister seems interested in him. Her brother seems nice enough,
but alcohol brings out the worst in him. He also meets an older couple camping
in the woods. Unfortunately, they have chosen a site that reminds him of his
late brother. And while all this is going on, the harvest festival looms. It is
an occasion when many of his contemporaries will choose their life partner.
Adam Szym contrasts this back-to-basics agricultural
community with its spacefaring past in Little Visitor & Other Abductions
HC. He also shows how the strictures that once bound the populace together are
fraying. Just as his brother came to detest his community, the protagonist
grows isolated amid all the happy, contented people. While the young woman
offers him hope for a better future, the couple in the woods offers him a sense
of kinship he lacks with those he grew up with.
Frolicker: Art
This story begins with the young protagonist attending his
brother’s funeral. While he clings to his mother, tears streaming down his
face, his brother lies in a wooden coffin, a cloth draped over his face. A
helmet hangs above the fireplace mantle, while a cross hangs above it. Then
recollections of the boy's brother evoke Harrison Ford in Witness, as the boy
works in the fields, milks a cow, and helps construct a building.
Adam Szym lays out this final story in Little Visitor &
Other Abductions HC with panel-packed pages. While the protagonist compares his
culture with its teachings, an immense mural shows a culture collapsing into
chaos, and spaceships reaching their new home. Piles of corn husks represent
the coming harvest. The lesions on a woman’s back highlight the dangers of
expulsion from one's community. Yet as the young man navigates this pivotal
period of his life, the fertile land gently rises and circles above him. Amid
their desperate journey, his progenitors discovered this ring world and left
their spaceships to make it their home.
Lettering
Uppercase letters inhabit dialogue balloons and hover in
panels in Little Visitor. The letters in the subsequent stories fill balloons
and boxes in A Cordial Invitation and Frolicker. Lettering size varies from
generous to small. The final story, Frolicker, features the smallest lettering
of all. But then, Frolicker is a dense story with numerous panels packed into
each page. Thanks to Oni Press for providing a review copy.
Final Thoughts
Visitors come in all shapes and sizes. Friends and lovers
become part of our lives. As we make worthwhile things together, attend social
functions and celebrations, and bond with people who share our views, we form
new families and communities in Little Visitor & Other Abductions HC.
Rating: 9/10
