Just months before he allegedly tortured and mutilated his girlfriend in West Hollywood, trust-funder graphic novelist Blake Leibel gave away his latest creative endeavor for free in a desperate bid to further his comic book career.

But Leibel — the 36-year-old son of a wealthy Toronto developer who could face the death penalty if convicted in the grisly murder of Iana Kasian — didn’t look the part of a successful writer while sitting near stacks of his latest graphic novel, one Hollywood producer who knew Leibel told the Toronto Sun.

“He wanted to be a respected comic book guy and he used his money to create that image,” the producer said. “He wanted to be cool and edgy — and he wasn’t. But you could just tell, he wasn’t right in the head.”

Leibel moved from Toronto to California with his older brother in 2004 in hopes of making it big in Hollywood — all while living off $18,000 per month from his father and late mother.

“I didn’t see the violence coming,” the producer said. “I thought he was just a weirdo … wearing this big, heavy Columbine jacket … I mean, this is LA.”

Leibel stood out on many fronts, according to the producer.

“With movie and comic geeks, that world attracts a lot of weirdos,” the producer told the Sun. “But even in that world of bad hygiene and general weirdness, Blake was on the outer fringe.”

Leibel spent a lot of time at the Soho House, where he pitched his latest ideas, and smoked a lot of marijuana, friends said.

The rich kid from Canada was determined to make it big and put everything he had creatively into “Syndrome,” a graphic novel he once described as a story that tackles the “questions surrounding what provokes a person to commit evil acts,” according to the Toronto Star.

But it wasn’t entirely authentic, the producer claims.

“It was a clever idea, but what was unusual is that he paid other people to write, draw and design the book,” the producer told the Toronto Sun. “That’s never done.”

The graphic novel’s opening scene depicts a television news reporter outside a prison just before a serial killer is set to be executed, according to the Toronto Star.

The novel also has chilling parallels to the murder case against Leibel, as the killer hangs a naked couple by their ankles and slashes their throats, draining them of their blood — just as an autopsy showed happened to Kasian. She was found dead inside the couple’s West Hollywood apartment in May 2016, while the couple’s 2-month-old baby was found lying nearby, unharmed.

An autopsy released last week showed that Kasian was scalped and had portions of her face torn. Leibel, who faces the death penalty or life without the possibility of parole if convicted, has pleaded not guilty. He’s being held without bail at a Los Angeles jail and is due back in court Nov. 30, jail records show.

“A decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made at a later date,” the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said last May.

A judge in the case has ordered Leibel to undergo a mental health examination after a request by his attorney. Meanwhile, a defense attorney who is representing Leibel in his divorce proceedings against his wife, Amanda Braun, whom he married in July 2015, said it’s hard to understand what “causes people to snap.”

“Him being violent is so uncharacteristic of the person I’ve known for many years,” attorney Ronald Richards told the Los Angeles Times in May 2016. “It’s hard to tell which has contributed to any mental health issues.”