Sleeping beauties

A mysterious disease causes a cocoon of webbing to encase any woman who falls asleep, and the men of the world promptly lose their shit. Adapted from the novel by Stephen and Owen King, the first volume of Rio Youers' Sleeping Beauties shows the world descending into chaos almost as soon as the affliction, called Aurora, appears. Meanwhile, Evie Black gets arrested for killing a few meth makers and becomes the only woman in the Dooling Correctional Facility for Women who can sleep without the effects of Aurora. Small-towner Dooling is the epicenter of the apparent apocalypse, but images of Facebook posts show that riots, suicide, and the burning of cocooned women is a worldwide phenomenon. Evie is drawn to blend in with the other characters, but the ethereal moths that surround her and the Garden of Eden imagery throughout the book hint that she is special. Alison Sampson's raw illustration style captures the visceral carnage inflicted by Evie and others and contributes to the frenetic pace of the narrative strings that seem destined to come together in future volumes.