Spectators is indeed about sex and violence, but more specifically, it is a philosophical, political and artistic exploration of our propensity as a human race to be spectators. We largely stand by and watch as the planet dies, we watch sports, we watch movies and other media, including pornography, we party, we engage in sex, as Rome burns. We are passive and largely disengaged from meaningful interaction with each other and the issues that threaten us with extinction.

Religion, Marx said, is the opiate of the people; in other words, it inhibits our political will to revolt against the class system. It’s a means of distracting ourselves from existential crises. Movies, sports, porn, as mcuh as we globally engage them, are similar opiates, though the idea here is complicated.

So Spectators is a dystopian graphic novel. On the very eve of the nuclear destruction of the planet--yes, the bombs have begun to drop--two ghosts--spectators of the living world--a woman who was scrolling porn as she died in a mass shooting, and a cowboy who died of syphilis--muse on what they might like to be their final act, and they decide they want to either view or in some way participate in a (sexual) threesome! So in one sense, the book becomes a kind of quest for that ending.

Clearly, facing the end, others have chosen similar acts; at one point, the two ghosts encounter an orgy, which they watch. And to be clear, this book is about and depicts very explicit acts of sex and violence, though (spoiler alert) it does not celebrate these acts. Well, it’s the nmarvel of Vaughn’s wizardry that we very much like these two, we see a akinship with them, sure, to die copulating might be the best wat to go, and so on, so we are implicated in Vaughan’s critique, but this book is not porn and not gratuitous in the usual sense of the word.

We like these two as in the middle of the apocalypse they swap stories of their favorite movies, including the cowboy’s original viewing of The Great Rain Robbery, but I have to say, if you are a film lover, you love the talk, as does movie maker Vaughan. These films are great art, they are a comforth, they make the world better AND as a form they are a distraction, too! Vaughan gets to have it both ways!

A found this book to be more than ever over-the-top Vaughan, hilarious, outrageous, shocking, and deeply reflective, so I say it is brilliant, and the ending, which I have studied for awhile now, I think is thought-provoking.

Many people--because it so graphic, sexually and violently--have found this book not to be for them, and I get it. Be warned. It is not Saga, it is not Pride of Baghdad or Runaways. This is adult-themed. But ultimately, this book is takes a traditional artistic and literary stand against (mere) escape (great films are never merely escapist, in Vaughan’s view) and isolation and random acts of violence. But embraces love and engagement with the planet most of us know is in freefall crisis but worth saving.

Thank you Image Comics & NetGalley for a chance to read this graphic novel (my first ever)!

This was an quick & entertaining story about sex, violence, voyeurism, and the afterlife; I thought it was very clever. There was a lot more uhhhhh como se dice ✨sexual content✨ than I was expecting (and I was expecting approximately zero going into this), but that's probably on me. I thought the art style was beautiful, it even made the violent scenes interesting to look at.

A graphic novel aimed at the "mature" audience from Brian K Vaughan which has an extremely interesting and unique storyline. Hard to give a summary of the plot without dropping spoilers so I'll just say that our titular "spectators" find themselves in this situation after a random meeting having come from very different times and embark on a bit of a quest to watch a particularly moment while everything around them goes to shit.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the artwork was exceptionally good. Well worth the read.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for my review copy

We can always count on Eisner Award-winning writer Brian K. Vaughan to deliver something truly unique and thought-provoking. This goes for his latest graphic novel, Spectators, illustrated by Pride of Baghdad artist Niko Henrichon.

Hundreds of years in the future, New York City is haunted by many ghosts, including a voyeuristic woman who died in our present day and a mysterious gun-toting man from the distant past. Normally solo travelers, these two specters meet each other just in time to observe what might be the end of the (living) world.

Vaughan has created some fantastic stories over the years and Spectators is no exception. This unconventional supernatural tale dives into the lives of sex and violence from the point-of-view of the life beyond the grave. While ghostly figures are often imagined as passive onlookers, but it never really crossed my mind on when they are viewing in–are they watching us all have sex? Vaughan answers this in the bold and thought-provoking style he’s known for.

While Spectators doesn't aim to be the most exciting comic on the shelves, it does offer a distinctive experience. Through reflective narration, the story touches on things such as childhood trauma, sexual beginnings and politics. There is also a strong connection to films as the story progresses, a nice connection to spectating. These discussions create a somber yet insightful lens on the fleeting moments that make up our lives. The pacing may feel a bit slow, but it's an intentional choice that allows the story to sink in and take root.

Henrichon puts the graphic in graphic novel with Spectators. Henrichon's exceptional and vivid illustrations bring Vaughan's script to life without holding back. The use of black and white for current time and color for those spectating makes for a visually special comic. The book wastes no time grabbing your attention with a very violent opening sequence, setting the tone for the rest of the story. This is definitely a graphic novel that you might not want to read while sitting in your doctor's waiting room...

Spectators is a bold exploration of a few taboo topics, wrapped up within a supernatural romance. Brian K. Vaughan constructs a slow but powerful tale, while Niko Henrichon injects this story with intense and emotional illustrations. Together, this pair creates a thought-provoking graphic novel that challenges our notions about viewing, living, and, ultimately, being human. Spectators is a truly spectacular graphic novel.

Vaughan does it again! Seriously - I don't think I've ever read something from him that I didn't enjoy. The themes in this one were so relevant to the world we live in today that it was actually a bit unnerving to read and look at the artwork. Plan to go into this one and come out very reflective. There is graphic violence, nudity, and sexual activities - just as a heads up - but I did not find it gratuitous at all, it fed into the overall story and themes well.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This was a gritty, explicit look at the afterlife, from the perspective of the ghosts that don't move on after they die. It brings up many good points about toxic masculinity and the dangers of social media, which I was not expecting, but was pleasantly surprised by. It also asks many questions about voyeurism, human sexuality, and violence, and is thus DEFINITELY not a book suitable for young audiences.

I felt that the ending was a little rushed, but otherwise greatly enjoyed this book, both in its style and content.

Publication date: Sep 23, 2025

Spectators by Brian K. Vaughan is a truly unique read, captivating despite its seemingly simple premise: two ghosts, one a victim of a mass shooting, the other of a bizarre sexual mishap, simply chatting.

The book kicks off with a bang (literally). A woman, bored at the movies, starts scrolling porn and is about to masturbate when a gunman opens fire, killing everyone. Years later, as a ghost, she encounters a cowboy-esque figure, and their unlikely conversation begins.

Their discussions, spanning from childhood traumas and sexual awakenings to politics and favorite movies, offer a somber yet insightful walk through life's fleeting moments. It's a testament to the power of everyday talk, set against the backdrop of humanity's twilight. This out-of-this-world premise largely succeeds due to its focus on the intimate, human connection.

While I found the middle section could occasionally drag, with some conversations feeling like filler, these moments are thankfully infrequent.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Spectators and would highly recommend it to anyone seeking a truly different and thought-provoking reading experience.

Definitely a 'mature' title, and 'newly-friended dead duo try to find a threesome before the world ends' is one of the stranger plotlines I've read, but it certainly kept me going until the end to see how it finished up. More an entertaining story than anything hugely deeper (unless you're particularly drawn to thinking about the afterlife and what we've left behind), it's got all of Brian K Vaughan usual excellent writing, coupled with illustrations that are mostly-excellent. If you don't like your illustrations graphic then I'd avoid this because it has them in abundance and they really don't hold back at any point, but if you're happy with a bit of erotic fun then you'll be just fine.

The cover and description really piqued my interest when I saw this one. But I really underestimated how graphic this one was going to be. Younger me would’ve absolutely loved the raw and unfiltered exploration of the baser aspects of humanity. Present-day me also loved it.

Spoilers and some mentions of mature content ahead!

What I liked:
The story opens with Val, a forty-something single woman who’s waiting for her date in a movie theatre. Unfortunately for her, her date won’t be able to make it. From context, you can tell that she wasn’t really there to watch the film; she just wanted to fool around. But, since she’s left alone and hanging, she doesn’t hesitate to pull out her phone and visit an adult website. The artwork doesn’t shy away from showing you what she’s watching, the lust and longing unapologetically clear in her eyes.

And that is when things take a 180° turn. A lone gunman enters the theatre and starts shooting everyone. He’s apparently playing some kind of online challenge that requires him to get as high a kill count as possible to stay on the leaderboard. The violence is as graphic and brutal as the sex was on Val’s phone. Where the first half of this scene built up desire, the second half subverts it with shock and repulsion. An extreme depiction of the two most base human traits—love and hate.

In the aftermath, Val’s spirit rises from her body. She’s greeted by a different ghost who welcomes her to the afterlife. This isn’t your average afterlife. The spirits that roam in this realm of existence are mere spectators to the show of human existence. While most pass on to the next realm without a thought, many stay back to satiate their curiosity and desire to keep living via the people they watch.

The rest of the story isn’t all that spectacular. More like a conduit for Vaughan to exposit on the philosophy of existence, living, and more. I’m including this in the ‘what I liked’ section because I genuinely loved this exploration, verbal and visual, both. The world fast-forwards to centuries later, the baser needs of humanity still dictating technological development. Where the first scene showed adult websites and mass shootings, the future world shows an extremely advanced version of both.

As Val has been established as a voyeur, she goes around looking to satiate her unfulfilled desires by projecting that satisfaction onto the people she spectates. These acts range from love-making to outright debauchery. But the violent manner of her death has also made her want to witness scenes of extreme violence. If you think about it, we aren’t all that different from Val. After all, sex and violence make for two of the most sellable hooks on the internet, don’t they?

My favorite part of the graphic novel was undoubtedly the characters. Val and Sam like tour guides that you, the reader, are spectating as they, in turn, spectate their world. Over the course of some 344 pages, you learn about their lives, what made them who they were, shedding light on why they might be desiring the things they do in the afterlife. All this again brings us back to the ideas of what it really means to be alive. After all, in an increasingly voyeuristic society that’s addicted to other people’s projected social media appearance, how much are you living your real life?

One could interpret Spectators as a speculative commentary on our modern-day digital isolation. Every app, every megacorporation, is trying its best to keep your attention, even if it is in short spurts of 30 seconds. The adverse effects of social media have resulted in a growth of dissociative mental disorders. Perhaps, in accepting your digital existence, you’re slowly leaving behind your physical one. Social media has made content out of other peoples’ lives, and viewers are mere spectators who dissociate from their own to experience second-hand the lives of others. Much like the ghosts in Spectators.

I can’t say more without spoiling the graphic novel. But I have to admit that the book is not for everyone. The graphic parts are genuinely very graphic. If you can stomach the extreme, you’ll love this one. But if you’re easy to squirm, then you will probably not make it past the first couple of pages.

What I didn’t like:
The story itself is rather flat and straightforward. The character work and resulting discourse were brilliant, but it did leave something to be desired.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the book itself was everything it promised to be. Looking at humanity and our dystopian future through the lens of sex and violence, a convoluted and graphic exploration of longing and living. Yet, something felt missing from the narrative.

Maybe a better-realized world would’ve made the expositions more impactful. Maybe the characters spectating world leaders engaged in baser human desires would’ve felt more compelling than just common people. I’m only speculating here, but those are things I personally believe would’ve elevated the graphic novel from what it is at the moment.

In Conclusion:
Spectators is a beautifully provocative and evocative ‘graphic’ novel that forces you to reflect upon what it really means to be alive in the modern age.

TL;DR:
What I liked: The artwork, the characters, philosophical discourse.
What I didn’t like: The plot and narrative felt wanting.

Though I really enjoyed past works by the author, this one was just not for me. Others may enjoy it, and maybe I just don't get it, but I would have a hard time recommending it unless someone asked for it.

WHAT A WILD VOYEURISTIC ADVENTURE!

Brian K. Vaughan has created a fascinating and unique story spanning millennia. Spectators gets to the heart of what happens next for us as humans. It gives a resounding answer in the face of sudden tragedy at the very start of this graphic novel and then travels across generations and years of human history. It is both historical fiction and science fiction in such an interesting way. I enjoyed how Vaughan built his main character, someone who unabashedly was chasing her unfinished business. The story takes time to build, it builds character relationships, giving glimpses into backgrounds and flashbacks to develop characters further. This gives readers all the time in the world to start to love these strange characters. It is so different, and the climax of this novel is EXACTLY that, a wild race to the finish that readers will most likely see coming, but still find it immensely enjoyable as well.

This is definitely a “for mature readers” kind of story with lots of graphic sex, violence, and provocative moments. It follows ghosts of a voyeuristic gal and a cryptic gunslinger as they observe the slow-motion apocalypse of a world. It also leans into something more introspective than other Vaughan’s stories. Basically, it shows how obsessed people are with watching tragedy and pleasure from a safe distance.

The story isn’t super plot-heavy, and the pacing is more about vibe than momentum. But it’s readable as hell, and Vaughan knows exactly when to yank the rug out. Henrichon’s hand-painted art is often stunning.

It’s not my favorite Vaughan book, but it’s ambitious and different and I respect that. Is it worth checking out? Dunno, you tell me. If graphic sex and violence don’t disturb you, check this one out.

When I tell you this is a work of art. Brian K Vaughan was already up there as one of my favorites, but this was something else. It had everything I loved, and the moral quandary was perfection. I couldn't recommend enough.

This book was beautifully illustrated. It's a little light on plot. But if you like voyeuristic ghosts snooping on graphic sex during the apocalypse, this is your book.

Vaughan introduces some really solid ideas here - apocalypse stories are certainly timely, and I appreciated the commentary on human nature and voyeurism, in which the reader is cleverly implicated - but ultimately there were too many dropped or neglected threads for this to rate any higher.

And although the nudity, sex, and violence were all necessary, Henrichon's illustrations still manage to feel gratuitous, at least on the first two fronts. I appreciated the (seamless, unremarked-upon!) inclusion of a trans character, but apart from that sole eleventh-hour development, every naked body shared the same silhouette. Perhaps if the nudity hadn't been so homogeneous, it might not have felt so... porn-ified? Exploitative? Boring?

I wasn't offended - if you're the type, Spectators is probably not for you - but I was definitely left wanting more.

Duecento anni dopo esser stata vittima di una strage in un cinema, Val continua a vagare per il mondo come spirito, spiando l'umanità mentre si avvia sempre più rapidamente verso la catastrofe definitiva.
Sesso e violenza sono insieme la causa e la reazione istintiva alla paura collettiva, e Val li osserva, impossibilitata ad agire, come tutti gli altri fantasmi che si muovono insieme a lei, fra cui un misterioso cowboy.
Solitudine, violenza, violenza nata dalla solitudine, impossibilità di agire; non c'è speranza in questa graphic novel.
Detto questo, io la profondità e l'innovazione me le sono perse.
L'unica netta impressione è che Vaughan abbia voluto caricare i due ingredienti principali per scioccare e sconvolgere il lettore - cosa che con me ha funzionato come al solito, annoiandomi a morte.
Ma non ho trovato profondità né nei personaggi, né nell'analisi di quello che sta facendo precipitare il mondo verso la fine; l'unico spunto interessante è come lo sparatore faccia parte di una sorta di movimento incel che vede nelle stragi precedenti un tetto di morti da superare, e come questo gruppo sia responsabile, in un costante crescendo, di attentati sempre più feroci duecento anni dopo. Forse è solo questa inarrestabilità della violenza, nata e nutrita nell'emarginazione di soggetti isolati se non per il web, l'unico elemento di vero interesse.
Ho trovato in compenso interessante come molti recensori della ARC su Netgalley dichiarassero di esser rimasti infastiditi dall'abbondanza di scene di sesso (che sì, sono tante, varie e probabilmente sfondano il limite della pornografia), ma nessuno abbia speso una parola sull'altrettanto esplicita violenza. Trovo affascinante come il sesso disturbi più della violenza, per quanto esplicita.

When Brian Vaughan announced he was going to be doing a free comic about sex and violence, with art from his Pride Of Baghdad collaborator Niko Henrichon (and if you know that graphic novel, you'll know why the newsletter in which they published it was called Exploding Giraffe), it was very much a 'where do I sign?' offer. Since then it's been a long, strange, and yes, frequently explicit ride. More than anything, though, a melancholy one. After the early chapters, only ghosts are in colour, the strange future in which they find themselves rendered in monochrome – a decision which obviously suggests The Wizard Of Oz or A Matter Of Life And Death, even as the story goes to places neither of them would have been able to touch. That greyness aside, the future is...well, lonely, often, and sometimes brutal, but also filled with the sort of incredible yet everyday technology we used to expect from our futures, so between that and the fact it's there at all, not utterly flooded and/or burned, these days I'd call it utopian, despite the way events start trending. And in a sense it's pretty utopian to have top comics creators willingly giving away a whole series for free; part of me suspects it will read considerably better collected than it did trickling out as two or three pages a week. But, much like the people it follows, I'm not brilliant with that level of deferred gratification. Although I'd debate how representative those characters are; at one stage, with another apparent apocalypse looming for the living, one ghost says to another how she enjoys watching the living get horny at times like this: "whenever the general population is unexpectedly confronted with their own mortality, they always return to the same thing". Which...either there are some significant exceptions to that rule, or a lot of people have been having a significantly more entertaining 2020s than me; thus far, this feels like it's been a much better decade for violence than sex. But then they so often are, aren't they? We talk about the world's oldest profession, but organisms that reproduce asexually still prey, so surely violence has been around longer, and all these eons later it remains so much easier to destroy than to create. And somehow so much easier to get our heads around, too: as one ghost says, "I probably had a few thousand orgasms in my life, and I still struggle to remember what a single one of them felt like. But I'll never forget exactly how it felt to get shot to death." Something which then ends up in a feedback loop with our cultural mores, so many places finding sex more taboo than violence, even though one is where almost all of us come from and the other is much more to be avoided. The existence of incel killing sprees has clearly influenced aspects of the plot, but unlike all the chuckleheads happy to blame the nasty interwebs for everything, Spectators knows the roots go back longer; the emotional core of the whole comic, I think, is in a particular scene with a VHS tape which, given Vaughan is about the same age as me, I strongly suspect could be autobiographical. And against those centuries of destructive conditioning, here he does his own small part to push back, with a sometimes strangely heartwarming tale of two ghosts just trying to find a threesome to spy on at the end of the world.
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Rereading almost in one sitting, thanks to Image having finally come back to Netgalley (oh joyous day), though whether this included the new spreads BKV has mentioned, I honestly couldn't say. Perhaps that just means they're very well integrated – though I did notice one page was duplicated in the ARC, even if that did make its grumpy cat even funnier. Certainly the themes and the symmetry come through more clearly this way, and I'm still more impressed at the worldbuilding for how much it stays in the background. A really impressive piece of work, and one I hope endures as it deserves, though the very forces it examines which will militate against its presence in libraries &c already seem stronger than five months ago.

This was an interesting read. I didnt not like it but it did take me a second to get into it. I feel like the back story was kinda pushed in instead of woven. There is a lot of violence/gore at the same time there is sexual content (but no sexual violence) - just FYI for possibly sensitive readers. I like Brain Vaughan and it feels pretty on brand with image comics. It was a fun read, kinda weird but also cool.

What if your entire afterlife started off with a bang? Most people are supposed to move on after such a traumatic ending, but that is not the case for Val. She spends her afterlife doing what she loved to do in life: watching others. In fact, you may say it is an obsession. What new episode may she spectate upon next? And will she always spectate alone?

This one is not for the prude, or those averse to violence.

However, I will say that Brian K. Vaughn has done it again with Spectators. He has sculpted an intriguing tale with interesting characters that keep you hooked til the end of the line. It is worth the read.

#ThxNetGalley #BrianK.Vaughan #Spectators

"Explicitly sexy and shockingly violent" is right! I was warned, and I have read from Brian K Vaughan before, but I must say I was caught a little off-guard when only handful of pages in we see our main character casually watching pornography in a cinema! It is definitely not something you'd want to read on public transport! Having said that, I did thoroughly enjoy this one! It was funny, sexy, violent, and tense - I could not put it down.

Kudos to artist Niko Henrichon, the visuals are absolutely STUNNING. Love the art style and the contrast between the black and white of the living versus the colour of the dead spectators.