Content warning: This review discusses sexual assault, including incest.
Deprog Volume 1 collects the first four issue arc of Tina Horn, Lisa Sterle, and Gab Contreras’ fiercely queer series about a woman named Tate, who works as a counselor to former cult members in her friend Les’ video store. When a flirtatious, non-binary bombshell named Vera comes into her place of business and asks for her help to save their brother Vinny, Tate ends up being face to face with some extremely dark things from her past. As a crime thriller, Deprog is full of twists, turns, and even some gunplay. It also features some spot-on media criticism (Tate is a pop culture addict because she wasn’t exposed to a lot of it growing up in a cult) and the healing power of BDSM sex as well as some genuinely disturbing moments, including scenes of rape and incest. However, Deprog is an engaging read with a charismatic lead character, and Horn and Sterle aren’t afraid to dig into societal taboos as Tate, Les, and Vera dig deeper into the mysterious The Caring.
Although Tate isn’t a licensed private eye, or God forbid, a cop, Deprog reads like a more queer, kinkier take on an L.A. noir story feeding into the history of cults, new religious organization, and MLMs from Goop to Scientology and The Family International. Through Tate’s knowledge and background, Tina Horn does make the distinction between corporations that want you to purchase weird self-care products and sell them to your friends and death cults although she and Lisa Sterle play on the blurred lines between these organizations, especially during the recruiting phase. This makes sense because one of the recurring themes of Deprog is boundaries. For example, The Caring uses lots of language centered around membranes and penetration while Tate thinks more critically about power dynamics like when she ends a consultation with Vera when she brings up Tate’s past. It’s interesting to see the red (Or occasionally green) flags that characters demonstrate early on in the comic coming around full circle by the time Tate and company are in full infiltration mode
On the visual side, Lisa Sterle and Gab Contreras excel at showing ecstatic pleasure through pain like in early scenes when Tate hooks up with Vera at a BDSM club. There’s a real sensuality to how Sterle draws their bodies, and Contreras brings bisexual lighting to these sequences as well as how Tate’s office is lit. These beautiful pinks permeate the spaces that Tate feels comfortable in as she reclaims her self-worth and tries to help other folks overcome cults and manipulative organizations. The chemistry between Tate and Vera is blinding, and that is all in how Lisa Sterle conveys body language.
However, Deprog isn’t solely eroticism. The second chapter is a tense road story with Horn and Sterle using tight grid panels to show Tate, Vera, and Les escaping from a shadowy gunman. This portion of the story digs a little bit into the horror genre as the gang heads out into the desert and declines stopping at a gas station to relieve themselves by the side of the road. Of course, this goes poorly and adds an air of menace to the story with Tate starting to think that the cult leader who manipulated her and her family is still alive. The tension also deepens the relationship between Tate and Vera as they immediately start having sex in the motel bath tub once Les leaves the room. The highs and lows of pleasure and pain, theory and praxis, and hopes and fears kept me connected to Deprog’s narrative, especially since Tate is such a vulnerable, complex protagonist.
At times, Deprog can be a tough read, but Tina Horn, Lisa Sterle, and Gab Contreras find room for joy, self-realization, and hard truths through the power of queer, kinky sex and self-examination. It’s also a damn good crime yarn, and I hope more adventures with Tate helping former cult members are in the card as well as her insights about life, the world, and pop culture. Seriously, this book is incredibly quotable and funny too.
Story: Tina Horn Art: Lisa Sterle
Colors: Gab Contreras Letters: Apparatus Revolution
Story: 8.8 Art: 8.8 Overall: 8.8 Recommendation: Buy
Dead Sky provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Purchase: Amazon – Bookshop
