Reich

A quietly monumental work from the small press, Reich is Elijah Brubaker’s meticulously researched and deeply personal 12-issue biographical comic about Wilhelm Reich, the controversial psychoanalyst and protégé of Freud. Published by Sparkplug Comic Books from 2007 to 2014, the series traces Reich’s radical theories, his persecution by the U.S. government, and his tragic descent into paranoia, all rendered in Brubaker’s stark, expressive black-and-white linework. It stands as a landmark of the alternative comics scene for its unflinching, humanizing portrait of a figure often reduced to caricature, and for its patient, novelistic commitment to historical and psychological depth.