Greg is the main character of Ben Jelter’s The Tumor. Greg’s life is, well, pretty crappy. He lives a lonely life, has a crappy job, and his mother calls him daily to remind him how big of a failure he is. To top things off, he has a tumor! As it turns out, this tumor is a little different from your typical cancerous lump. It has a mouth, and it hungers. Greg does what any logical person would do when confronted by a fanged tumor — he feeds it. As you’d probably expect, the tumor only grows bigger, until it turns into a real honest-to-goodness girl.

By the end of this graphic novel, this tumor will become both the greatest and worst thing to ever happen to poor Greg.

If that little taste of the plot sounds like one of the strangest things that you’ve ever heard, it probably is. The Tumor is a classic tale of love, loss, and growing up, dressed up in a thick layer of the surreal. Greg is a sad, lonely creature. Who can blame him? It’s winter, he spends most of his time inside, and his sole human contact is with a woman whom he both hates and loves. You hate and pity him; you recognize how pathetic he is. Yet, at the same time, it’s hard not to sympathize with him. He’s stuck in a shitty cycle, and he needs something life-changing to break him out of it. Turns out that his tumor is that chaotic, life-changing event. If this horrific worm-like monstrosity popped out of your neck, you’d probably be disgusted. Greg, however, is so lonely that he keeps it as a pet. He is that lonely. It’s hardly a surprise that he falls in love with it after it becomes a woman.

Again, who can blame him? She isn’t really human. She looks like an adult, but she doesn’t have those experiences. She doesn’t know what money is, how the world works. She depends utterly on Greg, who in turn has no experience in taking care of others. She is the first person who has ever truly cared for him. Of course he falls in love with her. Who wouldn’t, in the same situation? Of course, this love is also what brings about his downfall.

To protect “Samantha,” he hides what she really is. He never tells her that she began life as a growth on his neck. When new tumors appear, she is utterly disgusted by them. He wants to keep them. If the first tumor was the greatest thing to ever happen to him, why wouldn’t more tumors be just as great? In this, Greg learns the folly of wanting too much of a good thing. I don’t want to spoil all of the details, but let’s just say that Greg ends up losing everything because of this moment of greed.

Even then, at his worst moment, can you blame him? Inside, I knew he was making a mistake in keeping the new tumors, but I don’t think he could have made any other choice. When you’ve experienced so much crap, it’s hard to say no to anything that might bring that tiny iota of happiness. Greg has to learn about life the hard way, and that is where this novel tugs at the heart the hardest.

The Tumor presents a world of writhing, crawling creatures that turn into people and I am convinced that nobody could have presented it better. Remember that layer of the surreal that I mentioned earlier? Jelter’s artwork brings it out in full-force. Surreal really is the perfect way to describe it. It isn’t just the wriggly little monsters — it’s the awkward proportions, twisted faces, and the background details. He has this particular thing for long necks that really weirds me out, but it looks right at home on the page. You never question why people look the way they do. Everything is weird in this natural, consistent way.

Ben’s style is, frankly, kind of marvelous. I’m generally not all that impressed when artists go out of their way to be different. I think the difference comes out in his mastery of his own art form. His raw talent pours out of every single page. The dynamic layouts do as much for the flow of the story as the writing; the same goes for his ability to convey emotion through facial expressions. Jelter’s inking is some of the deepest that I have ever seen. There are layers of blacks and grays that just pop out of the page. I’m actually kind of happy that The Tumor is not in color. I think that some of that depth would just be lost. The Tumor is not a particularly long graphic novel. There is very little set-up, and it ends pretty abruptly. Even in the middle, the pacing is pretty fast. Ben tells his story without any extra fluff, and it works because of how well his art carries the plot. So much comes through in the artwork that you never feel lost. You never feel like you are missing any details.

I’m a little surprised that I’ve spent the past several hundred words gushing about The Tumor. I didn’t even expect to like it at first. Hell, when I first heard about it, I kind of rolled my eyes. The plot sounded kind of hokey and the artwork was just a little too weird. I agreed to take a look at it based wholly on the fact that the main character shared a name with me. So, with my low expectations, I sat down to glance over the first few pages one night before bed. I didn’t go to sleep until I turned that last page, and even then, I sat there thinking about it for a while before I could get any rest. The Tumor won me over that completely. Jelter’s graphic novel is a self-published work, so it will likely never hit the huge audience that it truly deserves. That’s a shame. The Tumor is one of the most striking looks at life and loss that I have ever read, made all the more remarkable for its brevity. Interested in something a little outside of the superhero norm? I can’t recommend The Tumor highly enough.

The Tumor
Jelter’s Portfolio