'More Weight' Recounts the Dark History of the Salem Witch Trials

"The most insightful, beautifully crafted, and impressively researched dramatization of America’s founding frenzy that exists in any medium, and a perfect illustration of why bloody-minded Northampton men should never set foot in the New World. An appalling masterpiece." — Alan Moore

Releasing September 23, More Weight is the debut graphic novel from Ben Wickey - an eye opening read of a horrifying series of events.  Wickey has crafted a stunning work of historical fiction featuring beautiful artwork and HAND LETTERED! 

 

Ben Wickey is a Massachusetts-born artist, writer, and animator. He is one of the contributing illustrators of Alan Moore’s The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, the illustrator of Ki Longfellow’s The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, and the director of several stop-motion animated short films, including the award-winning The House of the Seven Gables. 

More Weight: A Salem Story

By Ben Wickey

“Every word is an accusation…and every whisper kills.” This staggering graphic novel explores the infamous Salem witch trials and the long shadows they cast more than 300 years later.

In Salem, Massachusetts, 1692 is a year of terror. When accusations of witchcraft plunge the community into paranoia and death, curmudgeonly farmer Giles Corey and his great-souled wife Martha are forced to confront their troubled pasts, fighting to hold onto their principles even at the cost of their lives. In the 1860s, famed writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow stroll the streets of Salem together, reflecting on their own dark connections to those wicked days. Today, graphic novelist Ben Wickey wrestles with the complex legacy of “the Witch City” and what it shows us about the best and worst of humanity.

Based on true events, set in three centuries, and hand-drawn over a decade, More Weight ​is a stunning visual symphony — a unique and profound inquiry into the infamous Salem witch trials and the long shadows they still cast on us all.

"Shot through with tragedy and dark humor, this ambitious volume makes readers feel the weight of history." “In his impressive first solo graphic novel, animator Wickey (Supper with the Stars) does for Salem, Mass., what From Hell did for London, building layers of history around a crucial act of evil.” — Publishers Weekly