Infidel is a new series from Image Comics in the same vein as Get Out, only Infidel deals with a Muslim American woman living in an apartment building that appears to be haunted. The series is the brainchild of Pornsak Pichetshote, who many will remember as a long time editor at Vertigo Comics, working under the renowned leadership of Karen Berger. Together he and artist Aaron Campbell (The Shadow), with the help of colorist Jose Villarrubia, create a stirring world of darkness and light, where Islamophobia, Xenophobia, and racism come out of the shadows to haunt the main character Aisha.

Horror is the perfect genre to highlight the way prejudice and racism has crept out from the shadows in America following Trump’s ascension to the Presidency. The talk of a post-racial America during the Obama years was premature, and quickly gave way to the Nazi and “alt right” public demonstrations of hate and violence we’ve seen in the past two years. These hate groups have been championed and lauded by people within Trump’s administration if not by Trump himself. These “good people” Trump referred to are not always dressed up in skinhead, Third Reich wet dream costumes. Sometimes they’re your grandparents, your neighbors, and your friends.

Infidel focuses on Tom’s mother Leslie. She and Aisha get along well when they’re on their own, but when Tom shows up everything gets worse. She’s unhappy her son is marrying a Muslim, and in turn, Aisha’s mother has disowned her for being engaged to a non-Muslim. Tom warns Aisha of his mother’s dual nature, part of which is shown by Leslie forgetting as a Muslim Aisha would have nothing to do with learning Tom’s favorite ham recipe, and the other part is a memory Aisha retells to her friend Medina about what Leslie told Tom’s daughter Kris when she caught her playing with Aisha’s hijab. Is Leslie hiding a dark secret? Is there a duplicitousness to her that her pleasant interactions with Aisha hide? Her subtle racism, and that of others in the building, may be feeding whatever haunts Aisha.

Aisha’s dreams, or really nightmares, feature a ghostly or demonic form tormenting her. In the first few pages it appears to her like an Incubus. She’s able to fight it off, but then isn’t sure if it was real or if she merely dreamt it. The moments of horror in Infidel are done in a dramatically different style, and Campbell really goes all out to make the scary moments unsettling. There’s a lot of smudging and impressionistic touches to the horror moments that bookend the first issue. Campbell has said he used paint and mixed media for the fantastic elements, and then cleaner, digitally produced panels for real world character and settings. These opposing artistic stylings are supposed to show the old and new ways of thinking that are at odds with each other. It works really well, and the entire issue breezes by with the perfect melding of story and image.

Aisha may question her own sanity when apparitions appear to her, but we’re also unsettled by them, and unsure of what or who they are. Is it one entity or many? It’s hard to say, but what’s clear is the bombing in the building and the people it killed have something to do with it. Through television blurbs we see the debate over whether the bomber was a lone wolf, or if he was related to Isis because he once Googled the group. A whole level of the apartment building was destroyed, and has been partially rebuilt. But within the rubble and mess something evil lurks. There are moments of terror that reminds me of something straight out of Neil Gaiman’s classic Sandman issues, and that’s a great thing. Infidel is one of the more exciting new releases I’ve picked up in a long time, and I can’t wait to see what these guys have in store moving forward.