Roth: Wheetago War Book One by Richard Van Camp (Author), Christopher Shy (Illustrator)
Reviewed by Christina Barber
In the first twenty years or so of this new century, it was zombies who dominated the scene in literature, film, and comic books. Books and films like The Walking Dead and World War Z featured mindless zombies wandering with singular appetites reflecting a world marked by decreasing intelligence, where free will was increasingly being hampered by a smartphone-dominated world. But while the zombie reflected these initial realities, it failed to encompass the true extent of our transition to a digital world, one of deep narcissism and seemingly benign greed that accumulates into an all-encompassing world-destroying entity. Here, with Roth — Richard Van Camp and Christopher Shy’s elevated horror epic — steps in to provide a monster for our times.
“With Roth — Richard Van Camp and Christopher Shy’s elevated horror epic — steps in to provide a monster for our times.”
Pulled from Indigenous mythology, this creature is called the Wheetago by the Tlicho Dene. In cultural lore, the Wheetago is an ancient supernatural demon who exists in deep contrast to the land and to life itself. Once human, but now possessed by a malevolent spirit, the Wheetago is cursed with an insatiable hunger for human flesh and destruction that only grows stronger the more it tries to slake its hunger. It has the added horror of replication, turning other humans into Wheetago with its bite. The Wheetago succeeds in offering a truly apocryphal vision for a society bent on barricading itself away behind ubiquitous brown boxes, soothed only by trivial tchotchkes. We reduce ourselves to non-entities as we sacrifice intelligence, creativity, and identity through our dependence on Artificial Intelligence. And all this while denuding our environment and creating the real existential crisis of climate change. In Wheetago War Roth, a creature once cut up by Dene medicine workers and buried far apart in the permafrost, finds freedom from exile as the ground thaws around it; the future is indeed bleak.1
The first in a series, Richard Van Camp and Christopher Shy’s graphic novel is a feast for the eyes. Brooding and murky, almost photographic images create a cinematographic environment that sinks the reader into the nightmare. The book’s high production values result in gorgeous colour imagery that does justice to Shy’s illustrations. Van Camp’s writing is spare and at times poetic, providing a balanced counterpoint to Shy’s commanding imagery.
“I can hear them crying.
I can hear them, and sense where the children are.
The moon tells me. Through her. If I don’t go, they suffer…
or they die.”
Opening with a rag-tag group of escaped prisoners, we find them searching through a dream, finding the location envisioned by their leader, Glenn. A smouldering house is the immediate concern, but it leads to the horrifying discovery of a hole in the ground, where they find a Wheetago trapped within. The group discovers that he is the former resident of the house, and more significantly, a local hero who has saved countless children. All might not be lost, however, the Wheetago has not completed its transformation, and Glenn thinks he can save the man.
The horror genre is often a magnification of our deepest fears, and in these politically unstable times, marked by fear, selfishness, and the disappearance of the individual into the crowd, it is certainly a genre that pursues dire and extreme futures. Like the zombie, the Wheetago holds up the looking glass to us mortals, showing us what we are becoming, what we have in fact become: people more concerned with the worldly goods and the accumulation of wealth through consumer goods, than with the land from which it all comes and the environment that sustains us.
ALBERTA BOOK AWARDS GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2025 – SHORTLISTED
ALBERTA BOOK AWARDS DOUGLAS BARBOUR AWARD FOR SPECULATIVE FICTION 2025 – SHORTLISTED
About the Author
A recipient of the Order of the Northwest Territories, Richard Van Camp is a proud Tlicho Dene from Fort Smith, NWT, currently residing in Edmonton, AB. Richard is an internationally renowned storyteller and best-selling author of 30 books and graphic novels, including Three Feathers & Godless But Loyal To Heaven. His novel, The Lesser Blessed, was adapted into a movie by First Generation Films. Come visit Richard on Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, YouTube and at www.richardvancamp.com.
Christopher Shy is an artist, visual designer and concept artist whose work you can find both in art galleries, on posters and book covers. He is known for his posters and art for horror and science fiction films such as Mandy, The Thing, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Aliens, Friday the 13th (2009) Star Wars and The Wheel of Time. In the game industry he is known for the beautiful graphic novels he made for EA for the sci-fi horror game Dead Space. He has illustrated books for Marvel, DC, Paramount Publications, Fox, Tor Books, Sony, Lionsgate and Dark Horse Comics. Christopher received the Artistic Excellence award in Italy in 2010, his book, Soul Stealer, was named book of the year. Roth is Christopher’s first book with Renegade. Find out more about Christopher at www.artofronin.com
About the Reviewer
Christina Barber is a writer, dramaturge, artist, and educator based in Vancouver. Her poetry has appeared in The Whimsical Poet and contributed to the Vancouver City Poems Project.
Book Details
ISBN: 9781989754221
Dimensions: 75" x 10.5"
Page Count: 192
Release Date: October 16th 2024
Genre: Horror