Seance in the Asylum

Séance in the Asylum will have you questioning what is real, and what’s not…or in this case, who’s mad, who’s sane, or who’s actually possessed?

1865. The Civil War finally reaches its grueling end. Soldiers returning from the frontline come home broken, their minds shattered. An influx of patients overwhelms The Ashcroft Hospital, an asylum in upstate New York. Dr. John James Templeton is busy developing a radical new theory: spiritualism—the act of communicating with the dead—is its own form of therapy. What better way to draw out these mental maladies then with a little assistance from the other side? Templeton enlists Alicia Wilkinson, a medium who as a young girl established herself as a sought-after conduit capable of contacting the dead…but her own past continues to haunt her.

These séance sessions become a cutting-edge form of “spectral therapy,” where patients are permitted to converse with, perhaps expunge, their own maladies. By reaching out beyond the veil of our own world, these spirits aid in drawing out the illness of the patient. But something is changing in the patients. They are acting different...possessed, perhaps. Templeton’s experiment is a success. Too successful. It is up to Alicia to understand what is happening to the patients of Ashcroft…before it’s too late.

Collects Séance in the Asylum issues #1–#4.

Clay McLeod Chapman writes novels, comic books, and children's books, as well as for film and TV. He is the author of the horror novels The Remaking and Whisper Down the Lane. In the world of comics, his is the author of creator-owned series Lazaretto (BOOM! Studios) and Self Storage (451 Media Group). Recently, he wrote the sci-fi series Origins for BOOM! Studios. He’s also written for Vertigo Comics (American Vampire and Vertigo Quarterly), and Z2 comics. At Marvel Comics, he was the writer for the ongoing series Scream: Curse of Carnage, as well as for Devil’s Reign: Villains for Hire, Extreme Carnage, King In Black: Scream, King in Black: Planet of the Symbiotes, Web of Venom: Empyre’s End, Absolute Carnage: Separation Anxiety, Iron Fist: Phantom Limb, Typhoid Fever, Edge of Venomverse, Edge of SpiderVerse, Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, and more.