“Every word is an accusation…and every whisper kills.” This staggering graphic novel explores the infamous Salem witch trials and the long shadows they cast more than 300 years later.
1692 is a year of terror. In Salem, Massachusetts, Giles and Martha Corey are forced to confront their troubled past when accusations of witchcraft plunge their community into a violent moral panic. Based upon true events, and set in three centuries, More Weight is a unique inquiry into the Salem witchcraft tragedy and the misunderstood city now synonymous with it.
Ben Wickey is a Massachusetts-born artist, writer, and animator who graduated from the California Institute of the Arts. He is one of the contributing illustrators of Alan Moore and Steve Moore’s The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, the illustrator of Ki Longfellow’s The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, and the director of several stop-motion animated short films, including the award-winning The House of the Seven Gables. In 2025, after a decade of development, he made his solo graphic novel debut with More Weight: A Salem Story. He lives in California with his beloved wife and cats.
★ “Shot through with tragedy and dark humor, this ambitious volume makes readers feel the weight of history.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The most insightful, beautifully crafted, and impressively researched dramatization of America’s founding frenzy that exists in any medium, and a perfect illustration of why bloody-minded Northampton men should never set foot in the New World. An appalling masterpiece.” — Alan Moore
“Blending one century into another, Ben Wickey’s gorgeous and stylized More Weight explores the Salem Witchcraft trials of 1692 and their subsequent meaning and message. This powerful graphic novel both intrigues the eye and strikes the heart, revealing the full horrors of what only seem to be familiar stories.” — Marilynne K. Roach (Six Women of Salem, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle)
“More Weight is wonderful! Ben Wickey’s visual feast tells the poignant story of Giles and Martha Corey and Salem’s witch trials, with some surprising twists and turns.” — Emerson W. Baker (A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience)
“Ben Wickey's graphic novel More Weight immerses the reader in the tragedy of the Witch-Hunt. His text and captivating illustrations show the reader that Salem's story did not end in 1692, examining how Hawthorne, Longfellow, and we today are all attempting to understand and find meaning in the nightmare.” — Daniel A. Gagnon (A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse)
“With the accuracy of an historian, Ben Wickey wields the texture and rhythm of his graphics to offer a cinematic panorama of the horrors and legacy of Salem through the centuries. This epic masterpiece deserves its place alongside the works of Spiegelman, Bechdel, and Gorey.” — Margo Burns (Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt)
“Every word is an accusation…and every whisper kills.” This staggering graphic novel explores the infamous Salem witch trials and the long shadows they cast more than 300 years later.
1692 is a year of terror. In Salem, Massachusetts, Giles and Martha Corey are forced to confront their troubled past when accusations of witchcraft plunge their community into a violent moral panic. Based upon true events, and set in three centuries, More Weight is a unique inquiry into the Salem witchcraft tragedy and the misunderstood city now synonymous with it.
Creators
Ben Wickey is a Massachusetts-born artist, writer, and animator who graduated from the California Institute of the Arts. He is one of the contributing illustrators of Alan Moore and Steve Moore’s The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, the illustrator of Ki Longfellow’s The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, and the director of several stop-motion animated short films, including the award-winning The House of the Seven Gables. In 2025, after a decade of development, he made his solo graphic novel debut with More Weight: A Salem Story. He lives in California with his beloved wife and cats.
★ “Shot through with tragedy and dark humor, this ambitious volume makes readers feel the weight of history.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The most insightful, beautifully crafted, and impressively researched dramatization of America’s founding frenzy that exists in any medium, and a perfect illustration of why bloody-minded Northampton men should never set foot in the New World. An appalling masterpiece.” — Alan Moore
“Blending one century into another, Ben Wickey’s gorgeous and stylized More Weight explores the Salem Witchcraft trials of 1692 and their subsequent meaning and message. This powerful graphic novel both intrigues the eye and strikes the heart, revealing the full horrors of what only seem to be familiar stories.” — Marilynne K. Roach (Six Women of Salem, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle)
“More Weight is wonderful! Ben Wickey’s visual feast tells the poignant story of Giles and Martha Corey and Salem’s witch trials, with some surprising twists and turns.” — Emerson W. Baker (A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience)
“Ben Wickey's graphic novel More Weight immerses the reader in the tragedy of the Witch-Hunt. His text and captivating illustrations show the reader that Salem's story did not end in 1692, examining how Hawthorne, Longfellow, and we today are all attempting to understand and find meaning in the nightmare.” — Daniel A. Gagnon (A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse)
“With the accuracy of an historian, Ben Wickey wields the texture and rhythm of his graphics to offer a cinematic panorama of the horrors and legacy of Salem through the centuries. This epic masterpiece deserves its place alongside the works of Spiegelman, Bechdel, and Gorey.” — Margo Burns (Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt)
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