Gastronomique #1 Review: Hunger, Desire, and Death Feast on Revolutionary Paris
BOOM! Studios serves up a vicious new historical horror series as Marguerite Bennett and Helena Masellis turn appetite, revenge, sexuality, and cannibalism into one of the most provocative comic debuts of the summer.
There are horror comics that want to make you afraid.
There are others that want to make you uncomfortable.
Gastronomique #1 wants to make you hungry, horrified, fascinated, and perhaps a little ashamed that you cannot look away.
Writer Marguerite Bennett, artist Helena Masellis, colorist Nisha Singh, and letterer Jodie Troutman open BOOM! Studios’ new series with a decadent collision of historical thriller, erotic horror, revenge story, and body horror set against the violence and instability of revolutionary France. The issue arrives on August 12, 2026, with BOOM! positioning the series as a queer erotic body-horror tale built around desire in all its forms.
At its center are two predators.
One consumes because he seemingly cannot stop.
The other hunts because she refuses to.
Tarrare is the cannibal. Lady Charlotte is the Python.
And Gastronomique #1 understands that the most interesting question is not which of them is the monster.
It is what happens when their appetites finally collide.
Revolutionary France Has Never Looked This Hungry
The opening concept immediately separates Gastronomique #1 from the enormous amount of horror currently competing for space on comic-shop shelves.
Lady Charlotte—known by her codename The Python—is a former royal spy and a woman accustomed to hunting dangerous prey. Tarrare, meanwhile, is a cannibal stalking the streets of France with an appetite that appears impossible to satisfy.
Charlotte’s pursuit is not merely professional.
It is personal.
The official synopsis establishes that Charlotte’s sister takes her place on the executioner’s row in exchange for Charlotte tracking down and killing Tarrare after the cannibal murders her sister’s child.
That gives Bennett’s story an immediately brutal foundation.
Charlotte is not investigating a mysterious killer from a safe emotional distance. Her hunt carries anger, guilt, obligation, grief, and revenge.
And then Zélie enters the picture.
Charlotte’s former lover becomes both an ally and another source of temptation, forcing the story’s ideas about hunger to expand far beyond cannibalism.
That is where Gastronomique becomes much more interesting than a straightforward historical serial-killer story.
Everybody is hungry for something.
Appetite Is the Real Monster
Cannibalism may be the most obvious manifestation of hunger in Gastronomique #1, but Bennett is interested in something broader.
Appetite becomes the book’s central language.
There is appetite for food.
Appetite for flesh.
Appetite for revenge.
Appetite for sex.
Appetite for control.
Appetite for freedom.
And perhaps most dangerously, appetite for another human being.
The official Penguin Random House listing for Gastronomique #1 describes the series as an erotic body-horror and historical thriller, and that combination is essential to understanding what Bennett and Masellis are building.
This is not horror interrupted by sexuality.
Nor is it romance occasionally interrupted by violence.
The attraction and revulsion are deliberately intertwined.
Desire itself becomes dangerous.
That makes Charlotte and Tarrare fascinating opposites.
Tarrare consumes.
Charlotte pursues.
One cannot stop eating.
The other cannot stop hunting.
The uncomfortable possibility hanging over the story is that perhaps these two compulsions are not as different as Charlotte would like to believe.
Lady Charlotte Is a Killer Worth Following
For a series this stylistically aggressive to work, it needs more than an outrageous premise.
It needs a compelling lead.
Lady Charlotte provides one.
Charlotte is not introduced as a conventional heroic figure who has accidentally wandered into a nightmare.
She already belongs to a violent world.
She is a trained spy.
She is dangerous.
She has a reputation.
She has blood behind her.
That changes the dynamic dramatically because Bennett does not have to spend the first issue transforming an ordinary protagonist into someone capable of hunting a cannibal.
Charlotte is already a predator.
The question is what hunting Tarrare might expose inside her.
Her codename—The Python—becomes especially appropriate in a story obsessed with consumption. A python kills by constricting its prey before swallowing it whole.
That imagery fits perfectly into Gastronomique’s larger fixation on hunger.
Charlotte may not literally eat her victims, but Bennett continuously pushes the reader toward comparisons between hunter and hunted.
It makes her significantly more compelling than a simple revenge protagonist.
Tarrare Is Horrifying Because He Feels Almost Mythological
The inclusion of Tarrare gives Gastronomique an especially disturbing historical texture.
Rather than presenting the cannibal simply as a masked slasher moving through Revolutionary France, the story treats his appetite like something nearly elemental.
He consumes.
He leaves fear behind him.
And Charlotte must somehow understand something that does not operate according to normal human boundaries.
The pursuit consequently begins feeling less like detective fiction and more like a descent.
Every step deeper into Paris takes Charlotte toward something uglier.
But it may also take her closer to herself.
That psychological mirroring is where the series has enormous potential.
The best horror monsters do not merely threaten protagonists.
They expose them.
Zélie Makes the Hunt More Dangerous
Then there is Zélie.
Reuniting Charlotte with a former lover could easily have been treated as a subplot designed to give the protagonist someone to confide in.
Gastronomique has more dangerous intentions.
Zélie’s presence complicates Charlotte’s mission because she brings another form of appetite directly into the story.
Their history carries affection, attraction, tension, and unfinished emotional business.
The official description characterizes their journey through the Parisian underworld as something approaching a fever dream, and that is a fitting description for the atmosphere Bennett and Masellis pursue.
Charlotte is hunting a man defined by insatiable hunger while simultaneously being confronted by desires of her own.
The parallels are not subtle.
They are not supposed to be.
Gastronomique wants its themes overflowing off the plate.
Helena Masellis Makes Beauty and Disgust Share the Same Page
A comic built around eroticism, cannibalism, Revolutionary France, and body horror requires an artist capable of making beauty and ugliness coexist.
Helena Masellis is an excellent match for that assignment.
There is an elegance to the historical atmosphere, but the book never becomes polished to the point of feeling safe.
Bodies matter here.
Faces matter.
Expressions matter.
Touch matters.
Blood matters.
Masellis understands that body horror becomes more effective when the human form has already been treated as something beautiful.
If everything looks grotesque from the beginning, grotesquery eventually loses its power.
Gastronomique instead creates tension between attraction and violation.
The reader is invited closer before being given reasons to recoil.
That visual push-and-pull mirrors Bennett’s writing beautifully.
BOOM! has described Masellis’ work on the series as intentionally sensual and stomach-turning, which is a remarkably accurate description of the visual identity being established.
Nisha Singh’s Colors Give the Horror Temperature
Nisha Singh’s coloring provides another crucial element.
Historical stories can easily become trapped in washed-out browns and grays because creators understandably want to communicate age, dirt, and decay.
Gastronomique needs more.
Its horror is physical.
Its sensuality is physical.
Its hunger is physical.
The colors need to give that world temperature.
Singh’s work helps scenes feel feverish rather than merely antiquated, complementing Masellis’ imagery and reinforcing the sensation that Charlotte is moving through an increasingly unstable dream.
The result suits a comic where attraction, violence, and revulsion constantly brush against one another.
Jodie Troutman Keeps the Feast Controlled
With so much happening thematically and visually, Jodie Troutman’s lettering performs an important balancing act.
Gastronomique is deliberately excessive in concept, but excess only works when the actual reading experience remains controlled.
The lettering gives Bennett’s dialogue and narration room without competing against Masellis’ imagery.
That matters in a story where atmosphere is as important as exposition.
The creative team clearly wants readers lingering over individual moments rather than racing through the plot simply to discover who catches whom.
Marguerite Bennett Is Working in Familiar—but Fertile—Territory
Readers familiar with Bennett’s work on titles such as DC Comics: Bombshells, Batwoman, InSeXts, Animosity, and more recently ODIN will recognize several interests converging here.
Power.
Queerness.
Violence.
Female relationships.
Transformation.
Desire.
And characters who do not fit comfortably into clean heroic categories.
Bennett is also a GLAAD-nominated and New York Times-bestselling writer, and Gastronomique feels particularly suited to her willingness to mix sexuality, horror, and emotionally complicated relationships.
The historical setting gives those themes another layer because Charlotte and Zélie’s relationship exists inside a society already being violently reorganized around them.
France itself is changing.
Old structures are being destroyed.
Bodies are being destroyed.
And the characters are discovering that personal appetite does not disappear simply because civilization is collapsing.
Revolutionary Paris Becomes Another Predator
One of the smartest decisions behind Gastronomique is the setting.
Revolutionary Paris is not simply historical decoration.
It is an environment already defined by blood, instability, fear, class conflict, execution, and social transformation.
Put a cannibal into that world and suddenly the question of who is consuming whom becomes much larger.
People consume.
Governments consume.
Revolutions consume.
Desire consumes.
Grief consumes.
Tarrare is simply the most literal manifestation of what everyone else is doing metaphorically.
That gives Gastronomique room to become far more than a cat-and-mouse thriller.
The first issue plants enough thematic material that this could become a fascinating examination of appetite disguised as a beautifully obscene horror comic.
That is a compliment.
Horror That Wants You Uncomfortable
Readers should know what kind of comic they are walking into.
Gastronomique #1 is deliberately adult.
Its identity is built around sexuality, violence, cannibalism, queer desire, and body horror. BOOM! has not been shy about that positioning, and even the issue’s variant program reinforces the provocative tone, including a polybagged Jenny Frison NSFW cover among several variants. Midtown Comics lists covers from Helena Masellis, Alison Sampson, Jenny Frison, Reiko Murakami, Nimit Malavia, and Jen Bartel.
None of those elements feel included simply to make the book appear edgy.
They belong to the same central idea.
What do we want—and what happens when we stop pretending we don’t want it?
That is considerably more interesting than gore for gore’s sake.
A Debut With Room to Become Even More Dangerous
Perhaps the biggest strength of Gastronomique #1 is how much room it leaves itself.
There is an immediate hunt driving the plot.
There is Charlotte’s revenge.
There is Tarrare.
There is Charlotte and Zélie’s relationship.
There is revolutionary Paris.
There is the question of appetite.
And underneath all of it is the increasingly uncomfortable possibility that Charlotte’s pursuit may eventually become fascination.
That gives Bennett multiple directions to explore without making the debut feel like a collection of disconnected mysteries.
Readers who come away hungry for more will not have long to wonder where the hunt goes next. Gastronomique #2 is already listed through Midtown Comics, with Helena Masellis returning on the main cover and the series continuing from BOOM! Studios.
That may be the most effective thing a first issue can accomplish.
It makes you want another bite.
Gastronomique #1 Review Verdict
Gastronomique #1 is a seductive, grotesque, and confidently provocative debut.
Marguerite Bennett does not treat cannibalism as the book’s entire hook. Instead, she builds an examination of appetite where food, flesh, revenge, sexuality, obsession, and violence begin bleeding into one another.
Lady Charlotte is exactly the kind of morally dangerous protagonist this concept requires.
Tarrare represents the literal horror.
Zélie makes Charlotte’s emotional world considerably more complicated.
And Helena Masellis gives everything an atmosphere where beauty and revulsion seem constantly separated by only a single panel.
Nisha Singh’s colors enhance the fever-dream quality, while Jodie Troutman’s lettering prevents the book’s thematic excess from becoming visual excess.
Most importantly, Gastronomique #1 knows exactly what kind of comic it wants to be.
It is not apologetic.
It is not restrained.
And it certainly is not interested in making readers comfortable.
For horror fans looking for something stranger than another monster hunt—and readers willing to follow a story into decidedly adult territory—this is one new BOOM! Studios series worth putting on the pull list.
Final Score
9/10
Gastronomique #1 is a bloody, sensual feast of revenge, obsession, queer desire, historical horror, and insatiable appetite that leaves plenty of meat on the bone for what comes next.
Why You Should Read It
Pick up Gastronomique #1 if you want:
- A genuinely distinctive new horror series
- Revolutionary France as the backdrop for a brutal hunt
- A dangerous female spy rather than a conventional horror protagonist
- Cannibalism and body horror used as part of a larger thematic story
- Queer romance tangled directly into the central conflict
- Helena Masellis’ sensual and grotesque artwork
- Marguerite Bennett working with morally complicated characters
- A comic willing to explore the uncomfortable intersection between desire and destruction
- A first issue that gives you plenty to think about after the final page
Final Thoughts
Gastronomique #1 understands that hunger is frightening precisely because everyone understands it.
Tarrare’s appetite may be monstrous in scale, but the brilliance of the premise comes from placing him opposite people with appetites of their own.
Charlotte hungers for revenge.
She hungers for justice.
She may still hunger for Zélie.
And somewhere in the darkness of Revolutionary Paris, she is chasing a man whose own hunger has stripped away every socially acceptable boundary.
Where one appetite ends and another begins appears destined to become Gastronomique’s most fascinating question.
Marguerite Bennett and Helena Masellis have prepared a first course designed to leave readers simultaneously fascinated and repulsed.
The table is set.
The knives are out.
And this feast is only beginning.
Join the Discussion
Did Gastronomique #1 satisfy your appetite for a new horror series, and what interests you more going forward—the hunt for Tarrare, Charlotte and Zélie’s relationship, or the increasingly uncomfortable parallels between hunter and prey?
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