Infidel And The Inadequacy Of Fear

Infidel is about Aisha, a Muslim woman married to a non-Muslim. Alongside her mother-in-law, step-daughter, and a host of colourful neighbours, Aisha lives in a house that was a mass murder crime scene many years back.

As distrust and suspicion between the house residents grow, the ghosts of the murder victims feed off these emotions, causing nightmares and assaulting the waking hours of those most affected.

Fear is a natural playground for prejudice and discrimination. Most of us revert to our core beliefs in its most extreme form when threatened or afraid. Reason has little or no place to function when we are in this frame of mind.

Infidel exploits its genre (horror) as a premise for addressing the issue of racism in an environment where people are scared and paranoid.
 

While the story is interesting and raises interesting questions about racism, I don't believe the book's setting is ideal for discussing themes like that.

This is because paranoia brings out the worst in us and any observations of humans nature in this kind of environment tend to be a little bit skewed.

Fans of the horror genre will love Infidel's realistic art style and the flesh-like goriness of some of the characters. Dialogue is one of the strong points of this book - the quality of the dialogue lends a lot of credibility to the characters. Also, people hankering for characters of colour as the main protagonist of a graphic novel will not be disappointed.

Many thanks to Image Comics for review copy.

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