The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8

By Thomas Ott. Published by Fantagraphics. 

Hardcover, 144 pages, Monochrome, 2008.

Swiss horror master Thomas Ott returns with the first full-length, wordless graphic novel of his career. When clearing up the cell of a prisoner who has been sentenced to death and subsequently executed, a prison guard finds a small piece of paper with a combination of numbers on it. On the spur of the moment, he puts it into his pocket. As the guard lives a solitary, monotonous life, the numbers on the paper awake his curiosity.

Thomas Ott's O. Henry-esque plot twists will delight fans of classic horror like The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt, or modern masters like filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan; his hallucinatory, hyper-detailed scratchboard illustrations will haunt you long after you've put the book down.