Deprog

by Tina Horn, Lisa Sterle (illustrator), Gab Contreras (Colorist)

Deprog is a new detective thriller from Tina Horn (SfSx) and Lisa Sterle (Witchblood) that' s John Constantine meets Jessica Jones with a kinky Midsommar twist. Meet Tate Debs, a hardboiled hard drinking leather loving dyke detective with an office in the back of Los Angeles' s last video store. Tate specializes in rescuing and deprogramming people from abusive groups with extreme beliefs — like the one Tate herself escaped, that believed in inter-dimensional travel and taboo ritual sex. When a femme named Vera, who may just be fatale, hires Tate to infiltrate a group of mystical hippies out in the desert, she must decide if Vera' s charms are worth being re-traumatized. Soon, Tate must face her past out of devotion to the femme she may be falling for... and a single minded drive to avenge her family.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Fiction, Queer, Crime, Comics

112 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2024

About the author

Tina Horn is a writer, teacher, and media-maker. She produces and hosts the sexuality podcast Why Are People Into That?!. Her first book, Love Not Given Lightly, is a collection of nonfiction stories about sex workers; she has also been published in Vice, Nerve, Girl Sex 101, and Best Sex Writing 2015. Tina’s workshops on dirty talk, sex worker self care, and spanking have been featured at Good Vibrations, Armory Studios, Lesbian Sex Mafia, International Ms Leather, the New School, and the Feminist Porn Conference. She is a LAMBDA Literary Fellow, has won two Feminist Porn Awards, and holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence. Born in Northern California, Tina now lives in Manhattan.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

[I received an arc for an honest review]

I enjoyed Deprog by Tina Horn even more than I expected to!

Our main character Tate rescues and deprograms people who have been sucked into cults. When MX Vera asked for Tate's help to save her brother she refuses at first because it sounds to similar to the cult she was raised in and escaped from. When it seems like the man who murdered her family may still be alive she won't stop till she kills him. Tate has to reface her trauma and discover that the things she's discovered aren't quite what they seem.

Hot damn this graphic novel was steamy as f*ck, I loved the art style, and I loved our morally grey lead character. When you dive into this one be prepared for BDSM, cult extremists, sapphic steam, ritualistic sex, taboo incest, and a quality plot twist towards the end. I'm very much hoping we see more Deprog cases in the future.

[Danika at The Lesbrary]

If a gritty noir graphic novel with a “hardboiled hard drinking leather loving dyke detective” sounds up your alley, pick Deprog up—though you might want to give the content warnings a glance first. I thought that was what I wanted, but I quickly realized this was a darker read than I’m currently in the headspace for. (There are panels of people’s skin melting off their bones and on-page sex scenes between family members.)

Despite it not being my style, I am glad this exists, because it’s fun to see a classic noir detective story with a lesbian of color as the main character, not to mention a genderqueer femme fatale. This is a dark, erotic, surprising, and disturbing read, perfect for fans of queer noir.

Full review at the Lesbrary.

[Alex Sarll]

Queer noir from Tina Horn, whose dystopian SFSX I really should finish at some point, although frankly I'm seeing enough of my peers turning weirdly censorious lately that I might have to put anti-sex futures alongside climate collapsed ones in the 'too plausible to be remotely fun' file. Anyway, this one is set in the here and now, with Tate Debs, herself an escapee from a cult upbringing, now working as a deprogrammer for hire. It would have been easy to coast on the updating of classic gumshoe tropes - the gorgeous new client is non-binary, the office is in the back of LA's last video store - but Deprog has the smarts to dig into noir's deeper engines too. The fascination with power, its convolutions and reversals, is obviously a natural fit for a lead processing her trauma through kink - but this goes as far as the foundational "down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid". Because even aside from the gender, that's not always quite true, is it? And what if the protagonist, though mean for understandable reasons and with good intentions, thereby ends up pushing people further into the promises of love and comfort which are the stock in trade of cults? Here presented plausibly, not with that too-early shift into obvious evil which can so undermine a villain, and thereby a whole story. "We must exfoliate the impurities of the corrupt world to connect with others, bring about the unified duality of pure self care!" - it's barely a step beyond a thousand wellness influencers. And key to Tate's deal is seeing cults not as anomalous, just a particular, fightable manifestation of ubiquitous human failings. "Cult leaders want what we all want: hot sex, endless cash, and no consequences. They just do it with more charisma than everyone else." "Religion, capitalism, the nuclear family, it's all a death cult." Even the muttering about the carceral state, and then proposing vigilante execution as an alternative, is at the very least plausible character work, if not necessarily good policy. Really, the only letdown is the art; Lisa Sterle and Gab Contreras do perfectly serviceable interiors, perhaps a little on the cute and cartoonish side, though maybe that helps stop things from getting too mired in darkness. However, those colourful pages sit behind fantastically dark and moody covers from DaNi, inevitably making me wonder what kind of full-on psychodrama Deprog might have been had she illustrated the whole thing.

(Edelweiss ARC)

[Sadifura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of my favorite pulpy queer thrillers yet, this comic balances steamy, erotic sex scenes with tense mystery and absolute horror with a rather uncomfortable plot twist at the end that, imo, is necessary (FINALLY, someone who acknowledges incest as a bad, traumatic thing and as a villainnous power imbalance even in a pulpy kinky thriller!). The exploration of kink and trauma was also a nice touch, as well as the interplay of kink, violence, and how those things are often methods of reclaiming your trauma. Overall, good indie comic!

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

From relatively new comics publisher Dead Sky comes Deprog, a four-issue miniseries that follows lesbian occult detective Tate Debs who specializes in deprogramming people from the grip of cults. Tate is approached by a buxom client named Vera who seeks to rescue her brother from a cult out in the California desert, a job that results in blurring the lines between her professional work and personal life.

Deprog isn't really doing anything too distinct here since it takes notes from works like DC's Hellblazer and Marvel's Alias, but given its independent publishing status, is more free to utilize heavy adult themes throughout. Tate is particularly involved in the investigation of masochistic and ritualistic sex acts, which is depicted generously throughout. Lisa Sterle's cartooning however proves to be a more body positive depiction of sex compared to the likes of similar works in the past from publishers like Kitchen Sink, Last Gasp and Fantagraphics' now defunct imprint of Eros Comix. Sterle's works is appealing and stylized, but also rather undramatic and moderated. It works for what the story requires of the art, but also feels like it isn't innovating anywhere either. The script similarly doesn't ever overreach or provide anything that really makes this story standout, but is otherwise engaging enough to entertain for the duration of the four issues.

[Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

femme fatale, always on the run
diamonds on my wrist, whiskey on my tongue

The concept of cult deprogramming is fascinating. The illustrations of the chapter pages and the cover art are gorgeous and work well to set the mood for a hardboiled noir. The main illustrations are a different style: colorful, slightly more cartoon-like, and fun.

The story itself is very interesting, but it is also dark and disturbing. I figured it would be heavy as it deals with a cult, but it goes there in a way that actually shocked me. Despite the subject matter at hand, Tina Horn still manages to create a story that is super twisty, turn-y, and fun, and also interrogates sexual mores, the human desire for community/belonging, and the complexities of faith/belief -- what is a sensible belief and what is a worrisome sign of potential psychosis.

Tate, the protag, is very crotchety and mysterious which makes for an engaging main character. I would read another volume as I like the deprog shenanigans, but more so because I want to know more about Tate aside from their sexuality and traumatic past. What goes on when they're not doing deprogramming counseling in the backroom of their friend's video store or doing field work trying to save people from the clutches of a death cult - inquiring minds want to know.

[Billy ⋆｡･☽･⋆* (semi-hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really good. Hot, kinky, fun (oh so fun, there a few plot twists that I was certainly not expecting but were amazing), mysterious af, and fascinating! I read this in an hour. I devoured it way too fast. First of all, it's about cults, programming/conditioning, brainwashing, then there's our MC Tate, who is a badass kinky queer that found healing in bdsm, And Then there's our sexy love interest, who is a genderqueer femme... not going to say more about them, just read this gorgeous piece of work, if you're into it of course.
Honestly, I feel like I could read an entire volume about Tate being Tate, like Tate living her life as a P.I., who works from her best friend video store's back office, and learn everything about Tate. Lmao. It's not I'm low-key obsessed about her or anything like that.

Also before reading check the CW (which the book does not include), it has incest and brainwashing on page, and it does gets juuust a little bit gory. It's all very culty ngl. But overall a great piece of fiction, and I'd love for "DEPROG" to be a series.

[Logan Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

(I received an ARC from Edelweiss.) Deprog Volume 1 collects the first four issue arc of Tina Horn, Lisa Sterle, and Gab Contreras’ fiercely queer series about a woman named Tate, who works as a counselor to former cult members in her friend Les’ video store. When a flirtatious, non-binary bombshell named Vera comes into her place of business and asks for her help to save their brother Vinny, Tate ends up being face to face with some extremely dark things from her past. As a crime thriller, Deprog is full of twists, turns, and even some gunplay. It also features some spot-on media criticism (Tate is a pop culture addict because she wasn’t exposed to a lot of it growing up in a cult) and the healing power of BDSM sex as well as some genuinely disturbing moments, including scenes of rape and incest. However, Deprog is an engaging read with a charismatic lead character, and Horn and Sterle aren’t afraid to dig into societal taboos as Tate, Les, and Vera dig deeper into the mysterious The Caring.

Read the rest of the review here: https://graphicpolicy.com/2024/09/01/...

[Mohan Vemulapalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "Deprog" a cult survivor turned deprogrammer and investigator gets drawn into a web of mystery and deceit when the cult she escaped as a child re-emerges with new sinister plans. This book tells a classic Noir detective tale that has been updated with a few modern elements while surfacing LGBTQ themes and characters that were common to the original material but were not acknowledged at the time the original stories were told. Expect an unusual and original take on a classic genre, nuanced LGBTQ characters, a cult that combines the worst elements of Jamestown, Heaven’s Gate and Goop, heavy BDSM imagery, some unsettling violence and the last video store in LA.

[Samantha Amberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this, but making the bisexual femme an incestuous villain really rubbed me the wrong way. So exhausted by every sapphic story centering on betrayal (Looking at you "Lucky Red"). Tina Horn is an amazing writer (go read Why Are People Into That?) but this book fell short for me in many ways. I *did* love the character design though!

[Zoe]

Conflicted about this one. Didn't realize how gritty and upsetting it would be. I'm not one to usually check content warnings, but I kind of wish I had. I still liked it, but I definitely didn't love it. Conflicted for sure.

[Nate Deprey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to get more familiar with Tina Horn's work. I thought this was solid with a plot twist I didn't see coming and a lead character I would happily spend more time with. I've wanted to read more hard boiled detective fiction from a lesbian perspective and this book helped scratch that itch.

[Nicholas Ahlhelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb erotic thriller set around the concept of cult deprogramming. I don't want to spoil anything else, but I'd argue this is one of the two best graphic novels of 2024.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. Nice, short detective-style thriller about destroying a cult!! Manages to tackle some quite heavy topics in a meaningful way and tops it off with a crazy twist at the end.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some modern noir with a queer bent. The main character works as a deprogrammer for cult victims. She grew up in a cult herself and has dealt with a lot of trauma. A femme fatale hires her to get her brother out of a cult that sounds a lot like the one she grew up in. Along the way, we visit lots of BDSM and steamy explicit same sex scenes.