Cult of the Ibis by Daria Tessler

I've only read one of Daria Tessler's works before - Salome's Last Dance, which I enjoyed a lot but had to admit I didn't entirely understand. So obviously I would next read a mostly wordless book of hers, about criminals and alchemy and set in a bizarre landscape.

The plot description of Cult of the Ibis does a great job of detailing the important points, so let me just quote it: this book "takes place in a fantasy cityscape loosely inspired by German Expressionist film. [... It] tells a story of an occultist getaway-driver who, after escaping with the loot from a bank robbery gone wrong, orders a build-your-own homunculus kit and goes on the lam."

Those sound like really random elements, but that's exactly what this book is: a collision of crime drama and hermetic mystery in a phantasmagorical city, in which our nameless, meek, yearning hero tries to transform himself, to double himself, through alchemy, perhaps because that kit costs exactly the take from the bank robbery of which he was the only survivor.

Tessler draws this in a busy, detailed, organic style, with imaginative panel layouts and film-inspired transitions. There is dialogue at important moments, but not a lot of it, and no captions. The reader has to imagine what any of these weird things might sound like. The main character, of course, never speaks. He's our Everyman, our viewpoint, our normal ordinary person - everyone and no one.

Oh, and there's a bunch of written text - alchemy explanations from magazines and advertisements - that our hero eagerly reads. We're not sure exactly what he's looking for in alchemy, what kind of transformation or power he wants, but we know he's small and weak: or sees himself that way, and so is that way. We don't know what he did before, how he became the one very different-looking member of this bank-robbery gang, any of the points on the arc of his life. All we see is this crime and the aftermath, along with his clear desire to learn the presumed secrets of the universe.

And that's what this book is about: bank robbery and the secrets of the universe. I doubt you can say that of any other book, so, really, you're now required to read this book someday, just for that. I'm sure you'll thank me for telling you about it.