I couldn’t help but think of the recent Netflix documentary series that has gone viral. It’s called Don’t F*** With Catsand tells the story of a man, Luka Magnotta, who posted disturbing videos of himself killing cats on the internet. These acts of violence garnered outrage from an internet community who began investigating who Luke Magnotta was, and then when he finally posted a video of himself murdering a human named Jun Lin, the police got involved and began a chase to capture and arrest him. A truly tragic story, but a captivating show.

Why is it that we are so intrigued by these stories of killing? The killer so frequently does so in a quest for fame, for infamy, thinking that somehow, they are special. Luka Magnotta was characterized by expressions of vanity, and so do some of the killers in Nick Drnaso’s depiction. How do we navigate this interesting space, between being so involved that we conduct in depth investigations behind the safety of our computer screens, coming up with grand and elaborate conclusions and conspiracies, real or fake, but rarely even scraping the surface of the people actually involved?

Drnaso focuses the majority of the graphic novel on the process of Calvin Wroebel, childhood friend of Sabrina’s boyfriend, and his grappling with the situation. He seems to be the target of a lot of internet sleuths, although Sabrina’s sister is also attacked, but he seems incapable of recognizing the effect of the situation on himself. His mental health reports can be seen swaying, he seems to acknowledge that he is stressed, and yet he refuses to acknowledge how that personal sphere permeates his public work life. How has he become so strangely detached, like so many other characters of this novel? Everyone seems to detached, even the graphic style with its simplistic drawings and its frame by frame narrative, just seems bland, faded, just peering into a tragic situation and waiting for it to fade away.