North Border
An illustrated supernatural border thriller
Daniel Bridgewater joins the Border Patrol to support his growing family. In the woods along Minnesota’s Canadian frontier, something is tearing people apart.
Witch River Falls, Minnesota
Daniel has a mortgage, a pregnant wife and no paycheck. A badge offers steady work in a town running out of options.
But Daniel is half-white, half-Ojibwe. He grew up on the Grand Portage reservation, and policing a line through land his people called home long before that border existed is no simple bargain.
He takes the job. The bills keep coming.
The night patrol
Around Witch River Falls, bodies turn up torn apart. The locals blame wolves, a serial killer, people crossing from Canada.
On a hidden route through the forest, a patrol camera captures something Daniel can’t explain: two bright eyes, a shape among the trees, too large to be a wolf.
His new job takes him straight into its territory.
Blood and badge
LeRoy is bringing refugees across the border. He wants Daniel to share the patrol schedule.
Meanwhile, a white-supremacist militia is using the same wilderness to move fentanyl. Its leader, Bob Dalton, has built a business out of the community’s misery.
Daniel wants to protect his family and do right by the people he grew up with. Every compromise gives somebody else a hold over him.
After the attack
A night patrol ends in a savage attack. Daniel survives injuries that should leave permanent damage. Within weeks, even the scars are gone.
Then come the sharpened senses. The hunger. The mornings when he wakes somewhere he cannot remember going.
He took the job to keep his family safe. Now he doesn’t know what he might bring home.
Screen potential
A classic monster story unfolds among night patrols, hidden crossings and rival smuggling operations on Minnesota’s Canadian frontier.
Daniel’s mixed heritage, impending fatherhood and compromised loyalties give the transformation a personal cost long before the physical horror begins.
Frozen lakes, snowmobile trails, isolated homes and dense forest turn routine journeys into exposed, dangerous passages.
A white-supremacist militia trafficking fentanyl gives the creature horror a second threat: men who can use Daniel’s family to control him.
The book
A novella by Benjamin Percy, illustrated by Francesco Francavilla.
The creators
Benjamin Percy is a novelist, comics writer and screenwriter whose work includes Wolverine, X-Force and Ghost Rider for Marvel. He co-wrote the film Summering. His honors include the Whiting Award, the Plimpton Prize and two Pushcart Prizes.
Francesco Francavilla is an Eisner and Eagle Award-winning artist known for his distinctive neo-pulp style. His work includes Night of the Ghoul, Afterlife with Archie and Batman: The Black Mirror. He is the creator of The Black Beetle and also works in film poster art and illustration.
Illustrations © 2022 Francesco Francavilla