Punch and Judy: A Grand Guignol

In this single-issue 2003 Slave Labor graphic novel, writer Chris Reilly and artists Darron Laessig and Jorge Santillan reimagine the classic puppet show as a Grand Guignol-style horror. The creators strip away the children's entertainment veneer to explore the dark, violent undercurrents of the Punch and Judy tradition. It's a stark, adult take that matters as a cult oddity—a brief, brutal burst of independent comics that treats a familiar folk staple with unsettling seriousness.