Kuja

FleshCore

FleshCore: Dreams is a graphic novel made for my bachelor's thesis at UMPRUM, telling its story almost entirely through image. In its world, death has been abolished and replaced with endless suffering as a twisted form of moral cleansing. The book follows a mercenary hired by the one organisation still capable of causing real death, pulling the reader through a decaying world of mutation and uncertainty.

Black hardcover of FleshCore: Dreams, embossed with a hooded, mask-faced figure Open book spread showing a huge clawed creature reaching down over a fleeing figure in a forest Open book spread: an ornately bordered text page titled 'The Holly Mountain' beside an illustration of two riders on horseback under a night sky Open book spread: a masked figure wired into a computer terminal beside a portrait of a mask-faced man in a wide-brim hat Open book spread: a figure standing atop a cube covered in eyes beside another figure crossing two guns over the same eye-covered cube Open book spread: a mask-faced gunslinger holding a pistol beside the same character walking away against a blue background

There are no panels, no speech bubbles, no traditional comic grammar. Each page stands as a single, self-contained image, closer to a tarot card than a comic frame, with text used sparingly, only where a feeling or idea needed saying outright rather than shown.

A hooded figure approaching a stone doorway flanked by two crouched pale humanoid guardians A gray mask-faced figure in a suit set against a fiery red and orange background A hooded figure crouched in a pipe-lined tunnel beside a rat Close-up portrait of a pale green humanoid head with one eye closed, against a maroon background A horned purple creature screaming with its mouth wide open, against a yellow background A crow perched on an ornate empty crib at night