Being dead sucks.
-"Do you believe in Love at First Sight? When I saw Ruben for the very first time, I knew immediately that we were destined for each other. There is only one problem. I am dead."
- Alisik, in the opening narration
Alisik is a German comic book series written by Hubertus Rufledt and illustrated by Helge Vogt. The first volume was published in 2013, the fourth and last in 2015 by Carlsen Verlag. The four volumes are titled Herbst (Autumn), Winter (Winter), Frühling (Spring) and Tod (Death)
Fifteen-year-old Alisik wakes up one evening - and is dead and stuck on an old cemetery, surrounded by five other undead people calling themselves "postmortal beings" and apparently one of them. Soon, she proves unable to remember both her life and her death, surrounded only by her new postmortal friends Spitzhut, Hitzkopf, Ottilie "Oma" Samtkraut, the General and Frings Corona. But there is also someone living who can communicate with her - Ruben, a blind boy two years her senior, with whom she starts falling in love.Nevertheless, there is danger approaching...the cemetery shall be razed and replaced with a mall. Can this be stopped? And what has the hobo living next to the cemetery to do with this?
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- The '50s: The decade in which Frings died, implied by the clothing and him telling Alisik that it had been “the years after the war, with the people yearning for entertainment and joy.” Since it is said to have been a good time for his family’s circus with usually crowded tents, the worst years after WW2 seem to have been already over.
- Afterlife Antechamber: The postmortals believe the old cemetery to be this for them. Subverted, since they are misguided. There is no Afterlife Antechamber intended. People are usually brought to the realm of death directly, and them being there is caused by a deliberate screw-up in the Celestial Bureaucracy.
- The Atoner: The postmortals all view themselves as such.
- Attractive Zombie: Alisik stays fairly attractive, even as a postmortal being. She is only very pale compared to her appearance when alive.
- Bland-Name Product: Alisik uses a social network called Friendbook, and a video of the postmortal beings goes viral on a platform named Metoob.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: The romance is about a living blind boy and an undead girl.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: While the first three volumes are titled after seasons, the fourth is just called "Death".
- Canine Companion: Ruben has a dog named Schnuffel whom he likes to walk on the old cemetery. It leads him to Alisik.
- The Casanova: Frings’ brother Wolfgang in his backstory.
- Celestial Bureaucracy: The realm of death has one, made up by different spirits and an army of Collectors. At some points, it is pretty ineffective.
- Christmas Episode: The postmortal beings celebrate Christmas together in book 2.
- Creepy Good: Herr Todt, the Grim Reaper in this universe. Also the postmortal beings themselves and Collectors count.
- Dateless Grave: Neither Alisik’s nor Frings’ grave is dated.
- Dead to Begin With: The comic opens with Alisik waking up as a newly-buried postmortal being in her grave, surrounded by the other postmortals.
- Death Amnesia: Alisik is unable to remember her death in the beginning. She gets better.
- Disability Superpower: Ruben’s blindness enables him to interact with postmortal beings.
- In general, the lore describes the phenomenon that this is the case for some of the living, since some of them have an altered perception of the world around due to physical or mental disabilities. We living people would call this “spiritual perception”.
- Oma Samtkraut remembers a woman who frequently visited them to chit-chat in the nineteenth century, and when she didn’t come anymore one day, they discovered that she had been brought to a mental asylum. She was presumably a mentally ill example of people with that power.
- Disappeared Dad: Alisik’s father disappeared some time after her death. Subverted, since he is found out to be the hobo camping next to the old cemetery.
- Diseased Name: Frings Corona. In his life he performed in the Circus Corona (presumably an Expy of the real-life Circus Krone (German for “crown”)]. Unintentional, since the comic was drawn before the pandemic.
- The Dung Ages: The age Spitzhut lived in.
- Easy Road to Hell: Inverted. It is a fairly easy road to a good afterlife, since the only hell The 'Verse could have in store for you is the transformation into a Souleater. And to become this, you would have to do something really nasty, presumably on mass-murder level.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: The city where the comic is set is never named. Nevertheless, the landmarks in the background reveal Berlin as the setting.
- Eldritch Abomination: Souleaters are jellyfish-like giant abominations populating the realm of death. They are revealed to be souls of the utterly depraved deceased, and being caught in this form and with a Horror Hunger for postmortal beings is their Hell.
- Elemental Powers: Hitzkopf has a low-key ability to control fire.
- Fate Worse than Death: Transforming into a Souleater after death due to having been a particularly nasty person. You are addled by a Horror Hunger for other dead souls, look like a large jellyfish and on top of that, everyone hates you. It’s the comic’s version of Hell.
- Friendly Ghost: The postmortals are all quite friendly undead.
- Friendly Skeleton: Frings appears as a jolly and very outgoing and friendly skeleton.
- Frontline General: The General was this in life and confirms this himself: When he narrates his life, he remembers having thrown himself into combat eagerly after his son was killed.
- The Grim Reaper: Herr Todt in this universe, who rules the realm of the dead.
- Healthy in Heaven: In book 4, Ruben’s blindness magically goes away when he visits the realm of death. Also, Oma Samtkraut is able to walk around and even run on her own feet.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die:
- Oma Samtkraut had two suitors as a young woman. She loved both, but had to decide for one. When she finally made up her mind, it ended up in a bitter argument between the two men, they dueled each other to the death and died both in the process. She never got over her deaths and doesn’t think spending her life alone in a convent ever made up for what she caused with her indecisiveness.
- Spitzhut wasn’t able to prevent his lover’s death from a disease by getting him medicine and blames himself for his death to this day.
- The Ingenue: Alisik is a sweet-natured, naïve girl with beautiful black hair.
- Interspecies Romance: Living human/postmortal being.
- Limited Wardrobe: Played straight for all the postmortals. Subverted for Alisik, who always wears the same white dress in the first book, but frequently changes clothing after the postmortals break into a mall at night and get some for her.
- Love at First Sight: How at least Alisik falls in love with Ruben.
- Man on Fire: Hitzkopf appears as this, caused by his death in a church fire caused by a candle he forgot.
- Missing Mom: We never learn who Alisik’s mother was. She is probably Conveniently an Orphan in this regard.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Both of Oma Samtkraut’s suitors during her life tried to invoke this on the respective other in a duel. In the end, they both killed each other, and she, feeling guilty of their deaths, became The Atoner and joined a convent.
- The Napoleon: Subverted with Herr Todt: When he is finally seen, we realize that he is a rather small, chainsmoking, rude and grumpy imp in a dirty bathroom coat. Nevertheless, he is a good-natured being who allows most people to live a good afterlife in his realm, and who in fact wields a lot of power - enough to reverse Alisik's death.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: “Postmortal beings” or “postmortals” is the correct name for the undead. They aren’t vampires or anything, like Oma Samtkraut explains to young Alisik.
- Only One Afterlife: It is revealed that there isn’t a Lightworld and a Darkrealm in the realm of death. Who was really nasty in life transforms into a Souleater, while everyone else gets a nice apartment.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: They are called postmortal beings, and are on Earth because they are still waiting for a decision about their future afterlife (or because of being deliberately kept away from the Collectors). Becoming one of them after death means that you were at least basically good. They are resting in their graves during the day and awake at night, and they and their presence can only be perceived by some specially-enabled living humans.
- Psychopomp: Sichel-Michel calls himself one. And there is a whole army of Psychopomps called Collectors working for Herr Todt.
- Quest for Identity: Alisik can only remember her first name and her age in the beginning, and a lot of the story is spent on making her remember again.
- Reset Button: The ending brings us back to the day of Alisik’s death. We see her surviving the day, knowing Ruben already before, the cemetery isn’t destroyed and the other postmortals will stay there. Courtesy of Herr Todt, who used this power for once.
- Soul Eating: The realm of death is populated by monsters called Souleaters, which prey on the souls there.
- Suicide by Cop: Implied for the General. He remembers having gone to the frontline voluntarily and avidly after his son Josef died.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: Exaggerated. It is revealed quite early that Alisik died in a car crash. Nevertheless, the truth was more complicated: Alisik and her father were riding along together in their car when she just suddenly gasped and fell over dead. Her father crashed the car into the side of the bridge they were crossing, opening a hole that threw Alisik out of the car. It seemed like she had died from the fall afterwards. But she just dropped dead, courtesy of Sichel-Michel, who wanted to kill Mr Conradi so the cemetery wouldn't be razed.
- Team Mom: Oma Samtkraut acts as this for the other postmortals.
- Torso with a View: The General has a huge hole in his torso that looks like from a cannonball. Justified by his death in combat.
- Undead Child: Alisik is a downplayed example, since she is fifteen years old.
- Unreliable Narrator: When the other postmortals tell Alisik about their mortal lives, their honesty can be doubted at some points.
- Woman Scorned: Gender-inverted in Frings’ backstory, since he was the man scorned.
