Morpheus

In the near future, a sleeping sickness ravages the planet, paralyzing humanity’s institutions and plunging the world into chaos. Amidst the wreckage, one woman fights to save her comatose daughter from the terrifying condition known as Morpheus.

Five years after a mysterious sleeping sickness known as Morpheus destroys life as we know it, survivors huddle in cities, each cobbled together around the shortened waking hours of their inhabitants.

In the city of Prague, life centers around the maintenance and upkeep of automated life support systems. The majority of the populace are content in this repetitive simple life, to exist without thinking about tomorrow. Others turn to religion for guidance, rejecting the science that could not save them from Morpheus. These nihilists believe Morpheus is a punishment from the divine, becoming zealots who will stop at nothing to bring about humanity’s downfall.

Even in this darkest of times, hope remains in the human heart. Juliette, a young mother, is willing to do anything to ＂wake up＂ her daughter, even if it means betraying everything she knows. When a geneticist named Yuri tells her the cure may lie outside of Prague, they embark on a desperate journey to Berlin, accompanied by the geneticist’s four robot guards.

But nature has reclaimed the land between Prague and Berlin, and the small party is pursued by threats unimaginable, none more dangerous than the invisible Morpheus... which gains ground every day.

Born in Brittany, France, into a family that loves the sea and devours books. At seventeen, realizes that he will never be able to read everything. Severe depression. Saved by his grandfather: ＂The novels that I have given you so far, you have understood them wrong anyway... Relax.＂ Since then, he has been moving at his own pace, his ear often glued to the covers of big books: You can hear the sea there. It’s the perfect pillow. Lives in the Czech Republic, where he teaches at the Lycée français de Prague.

Francesco Trifogli was born on March 5, 1978 in Rome. Though he attended a year at the Scuola Romana del Fumetto, he is predominantly a self-taught draftsmen and scriptwriter. He won the jury award at Lucca Comics & Games in 2009, just one year after its first publication. In 2012, he began his collaboration with Vertigo, illustrating a brief history for the volume Mystery in Space and the monthly series Hinterkind. In France, he worked with Éditions Tabou for which he wrote and drew seven erotic volumes and with Petit à Petit on the historical volume Le Havre.