The Wrestler Hardcover by John Kenn Mortensen

Product Details

• Publisher: Fantagraphics (2025-06-24)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 80 pages
• ISBN-13: 9798875001123
• Item Weight: 419.58 grams
• Dimensions: 25.4 x 18.29 x 1.27 cm

John Kenn Mortensen’s mordant, black-and-white inked images have taken you to The Nightmare Factory, scared you with The Bestiary, and given you Night Terrors — now in the internationally best selling artist’s debut graphic novel, you’re going to fight like hell!

Freestyle wrestler The Sledgehammer has never met defeat, not at the hands of Painkiller, Handsome Jens, Fezzik the Giant or the Angel of Death. But over the course of 80 pages, Danish illustrator John Kenn Mortensen’s surreal black and white graphic novel will take Sledgehammer to the limits of reality, to show that he’s motivated by far more than hubris—it’s also love.

Mortensen’s first English-language graphic novel delivers on the promise that his delightfully macabre books of illustration had previously made to readers around the world. With his spidery black-ink style, reminiscent of Edward Gorey’s gothic line, we’re taken to a world in which heavy metal mixes with the WWE by way of The Seventh Seal and Faust.

About the Author

John Kenn Mortensen is an illustrator, author, and film director. In 2011, he debuted a book of illustrations, Sticky Monsters, which has become an international bestseller. His other works include The Nightmare Factory, The Wrestler, A Christmas Bestiary, and two illustrated adaptations of classic Brothers Grimm tales. He lives in Copenhagen with his wife and twins.