Guilt lingers. In Heavy, it becomes something far more dangerous. Currently live on Kickstarter, the 28-page first issue from Trevor Fernandes-Lenkiewicz and artist Ryan Best, with lettering and design by Matías Zanetti, centers on Andrew Atlas, a line cook forced to investigate the supernatural disappearance of the younger brother he abandoned to foster care 16 years ago. As the world’s collective guilt reaches a breaking point and people begin to vanish, Atlas must confront the weight of his own past.
Blending existential horror with raw emotional introspection, Heavy asks who truly bears the burden of shame and whether guilt is a sign of weakness or the capacity for change. The Beat reached out to Trevor Fernandes-Lenkiewicz to talk about the comic and what truly went into aiming such a deeply personal story.
DIEGO HIGUERA: On the project page for Heavy, the first thing readers see is: “An existential horror about a dirtbag investigating the supernatural disappearance of his little brother he abandoned 16 years ago.” Can you expand on that?
TREVOR FERNANDES-LENKIEWICZ: The book begins with the idea that when the collective weight of the world’s guilt reaches a breaking point, people start vanishing. One of those missing is Andrew Atlas’s younger brother, the brother he left behind in foster care when he ran away 16 years ago.
Atlas believed he could not take care of him. They did not grow up in a good home, and instead of risking failure, he walked away. Now, faced with his brother’s disappearance, he is forced to confront that choice.
He has a box of letters his brother sent him over the years, letters he was too afraid to open but too guilty to throw away. Those letters become a trail, a way for Atlas to understand who his brother became and where he might have gone. As he gets closer to the truth, he starts to feel the pull of whatever mysterious force is behind these disappearances.
HIGUERA: You seem drawn to characters who are not necessarily good people. What interests you about that?
LENKIEWICZ: This is probably the most emotionally raw book I have written. I was raised Catholic, and while I am no longer religious, the guilt stayed with me. That feeling of carrying mistakes, of replaying what you did not do well, has remained loud.
I have done good things in my life, but what lingers most are the failures. I wonder what it means to be someone who feels that weight versus someone who does not. Often, the people who seem most successful feel untethered by guilt, while others who try to live decently feel weighed down by it.
Horror felt like the right space to explore that. It strips away performance and forces you to confront uncomfortable truths. It allows emotional honesty without apology.
HIGUERA: In the book, people vanish when collective guilt reaches a breaking point. So what makes a good person? Is it someone who pursues their goals unapologetically or someone burdened by guilt?
LENKIEWICZ: There is a difference between societal value and personal value. Some of the most compassionate people I know are the ones who wrestle with shame and self-reflection. Meanwhile, we see powerful people succeed without regard for who they harm.
That said, guilt alone does not make you good. Some people are so overwhelmed by it that they never change. I think the best of us are the ones who can look at guilt honestly, understand what it is telling us, and grow from it.
HIGUERA: You have explored emotional themes before, but here you add a supernatural layer. Do you think genre elements help readers engage with heavy emotional material?
LENKIEWICZ: That is what the best genre fiction does. It uses the fantastic to open the door to real conversations. The supernatural becomes the hook, but ideally, it leaves you thinking about your own role in the themes being explored.
It is not about manipulation. It is about creating something entertaining that also gives readers something to sit with afterward.
HIGUERA: The cover alone suggests emotional depth, layers, transparency, and symbolism. How does the art in Heavy support the themes?
LENKIEWICZ: The art is textured, raw, and deliberate. Ryan is capable of clean, beautiful work, but here we wanted something less polished and more emotionally honest.
We focused on abstraction, texture, and form. The brushes, the roughness, the way shadows shift, all of it reflects emotional instability. The lead character was designed as someone who presents strength outwardly but is fragile underneath.
He is a cook who pours care into feeding others, yet goes home and neglects himself. That contradiction is central. The art amplifies that internal shame, how it shapes the body, posture, and the way he occupies space.
Even the cover went through many iterations to capture that feeling of emotion spilling beyond containment. It is about how shame distorts perception.
HIGUERA: There is a strong body horror influence here. Can you talk about that?
LENKIEWICZ: There is definitely inspiration from creators like Junji Ito. We are using form and physical distortion to represent emotional states. If Rise was about clean lines and precision, Heavy is about shape and movement, how bodies and space can reflect internal chaos.
It is visually aggressive in a way that mirrors how guilt and shame operate. They do not sit quietly. They echo.
HIGUERA: Was there anything else you’d like to share about this work?
LENKIEWICZ: I would just say this is the most emotionally honest project I have done. After writing a successful superhero book, I chose to pivot completely and tell an existential horror story about the things that make me feel crippled as a person.
It is personal. It is uncomfortable. But it is real. If readers want something earnest, something trying to say something meaningful, I hope they give it a shot.
Check out a preview of the project below!
If you’re interested, make sure to check out the project here since there are only a couple of days left! If you’re interested in more interviews, check out our page here!
