Alien abduction stories have long been the stuff of pulp magazines, late-night television, and shadowy whispers. However, for cartoonist Adam Szym, they’re also a lens through which to examine human cruelty and neglect.
His new collection, Little Visitor & Other Abductions (available September 23), brings together three unsettling novellas — A Cordial Invitation (nominated for the Ignatz Award); Little Visitor; and the brand-new Frolicker. Together, they form what he calls a “triptych” of otherworldly horror, perfect for fans of The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and tales of the unexplainable.
“It all started with the title story, Little Visitor, which is ultimately about how the self-interest of the adults in the story creates the circumstances that allow a child to be abducted,” Szym said recently via email. “Working on that story led me to think a lot about how people and institutions treat young people, and also made me realize just how much of an impact alien and UFO-related media had on me as a child in the ’90s.”
For Szym, the metaphor of abduction has only grown more haunting in recent years.
“Unfortunately, abduction is a very resonant subject right now, and increasingly so,” Szym said. “We see people being taken and disappeared every day, it’s right outside our door, but the humans are doing it, not aliens. How that happens, why it’s allowed to happen, and how people respond to it are all, regrettably, questions on our minds today.”
Courtesy of Oni Press.
Horror in Short-Form
Though the stories are separate from one another, Szym designed them to feel like different angles on the same theme.
“I think the short story is the ideal container for a horror story,” Szym said. “Short-form storytelling allows you to explore riskier ideas, stranger concepts, and to play with form more than a longer work might be able to sustain. And, obviously maintaining tone and tension, which is really the name of the game in horror writing, is so much easier to pull off with a shorter story.”
That segmented structure also creates space for tonal variety, with Szym adding, “While these stories are not literally connected, I hope that they feel of a piece, tonally and thematically.”
Returning to The Past, Creating The New
Two of the novellas have been seen before, but placing them alongside Frolicker was a chance for reflection.
“It felt natural in many ways, because I think all three stories have a very similar feel to them despite being made years apart,” Szym said.
Still, bringing in something new was daunting in and of itself.
“Making Frolicker was an anxious experience because there was so much risk of it coloring the other two stories—it’s a much more complex story, and plays with science fiction in far more explicit ways,” Szym said. “Little Visitor and A Cordial Invitation are grounded in comparison, so it was a balancing act.”
That complexity came directly from art. Frolicker was sparked by Alvan Fisher’s painting Corn Husking Frolic, which Szym encountered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
“The meat of the story came to me almost the moment I saw the painting and read the placard that was on the wall next to it,” Szym said.
The connection to abduction is “much less literal” in Frolicker, which Szym admitted risked muddying the book’s themes. Still, he considers it “an abduction story at its core,” albeit “denser, stranger and colder than the other two.”
He added, “I expect it to be the most divisive of the three. But it carries in it a lot of feelings I have about our world, about where things feel like they’re headed and how people are being used today.”
Wrestling With Influences
As mentioned above, the project has already been compared to both The Twilight Zone and The X-Files, associations Szym understands but tries not to lean into.
“The Twilight Zone was something that inspired me deeply as a teenager, and I’m sure is a huge reason I still love both short form sci-fi and horror and am a storyteller today,” Szym said. “And, of course, you certainly can’t tell an alien abduction story without thinking about The X-Files.”
Still, he wanted to avoid simple homage.
“I tried to approach these stories with the least amount of aesthetic and narrative baggage as I could,” Szym said. “And hope that they succeed in feeling thoroughly different from one’s expectation from an abduction story.”
That doesn’t mean he isn’t a X-Phile. In fact, he’s midway through a re-watch.
“What I remember, and love, most about The X-Files is the feeling of it,” Szym said. “Partly that’s the aesthetics of the show, the way it looks and sounds and captures that era. But tied up in that is this nostalgic memory of how I would watch it: on my parent’s bedroom TV … feeling equal parts compelled and repulsed.”
Building The Uncanny
As both writer and artist, Szym thrives on creating imagery that unsettles.
“One of the best parts of horror as an artist is how image-forward it is,” Szym said. “It’s a genre that encourages you to build narrative toward or around striking images, and trying to create images that satisfy that build up and pay out like a slot machine is a fun creative challenge.”
The process is a mix of instinct and calculation, and as such, it means knowing how to best start.
“Sometimes it’s instinctual, and the image just comes to you,” Szym said. “Other times it requires more thought, because avoiding the cliche is a difficult thing to do in horror. Putting myself in the shoes of my characters, thinking about their setting and what would frighten them most in that space, is how I often start.”
Some 15 Years In
Little Visitor & Other Abductions also reflects where Szym is as a creator after 15 years of making comics.
“For about 10 years there, I almost never arrived at a finished drawing that approached what I wanted it to be in my head,” Szym said. “Now I manage to do that most of the time, which is great!”
More importantly, though, his interests have shifted, and you can see that in the work itself.
“I think this book reflects a shift in my interests towards things that are more grounded, more dramatic, and more personal,” Szym said. “At least that’s how I see it.”
Looking Ahead
Even as the book closes one chapter, it hints at other tales/projects to come.
“I’m definitely taking a long break from abduction stories,” Szym said. “I have more ideas for them, good ideas even, but they can wait.”
Instead, his future endeavors will move away from direct sci-fi toward something altogether more visceral. (Sort of.)
“I have four or five ideas that would make for a great collection, but all of them are strictly horror without the sci-fi,” Szym said. “But I also have ideas for stories that are sci-fi without the horror, so it seems like those two need a break from each other, for me.”
Whatever direction Szym chooses, Little Visitor & Other Abductions captures a moment in his evolution: It’s a collection of strange, chilling stories about how we treat one another, cloaked in the uncanny possibility of visitors from beyond.
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