In Richland, bats have gotten into the nuclear waste dump. Irradiated, they wantonly bite people around this eastern Washington city. The bitten people feel like shit — they look like zombies, have itchy skin, sick stomachs and violent urges to rip people apart. But a drug made from toxic waste makes them feel better. For a while. They line up to get it, desperate. Then crash again hours later.
This is the basic premise for Tim Mulligan’s new graphic novel, “Twitchland” — quasi-tweakers getting high on nuclear waste. It’s the third installation in his “Witchland” series that combines horror, humor and addiction, all set in the most toxic place in the Western Hemisphere.
Meet Hanford
What’s so toxic about Richland? Along with Kennewick and Pasco, Richland is part of the Tri-Cities, situated near the Hanford nuclear site. Hanford is the home of B Reactor, the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor. It produced the plutonium in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II, and continued making nasty stuff for weapons during the Cold War. Since being decommissioned in 1989, the site has been trying to clean up nuclear waste. Which might be even harder than producing it.
As a traveler and travel writer, I’ve always had an interest in visiting dark and difficult sites — asylums, prisons, haunted places — as well as the world’s beauty spots. I once hovered over my computer at midnight, waiting for the Department of Energy to open up spaces on its five-hour tour of Hanford. I visited B Reactor. I stood on the rim of a valley of toxic waste and heard very optimistic theories of how workers would dispose of it. That was at least 15 years ago, and still people are trying to keep that waste out of the Columbia River.
So I was super excited to learn that Mulligan had produced a series of graphic novels combining the toxic horrors of Hanford with addiction and the supernatural. It was like he’d written it just for me!
Developing the “Twitchland” Story
“I’m not a vampire expert.” Tim made this disclaimer near the beginning of our conversation. He’s from Richland and now lives in San Diego. “Twitchland” started off with the lore he grew up with, such as animals infected by radiation stored in the tanks of nuclear waste at Hanford. “What if some bats got into the tanks? And they get out and they start biting the kids around town and they start creating all these vampires?”
While he was writing “Twitchland,” Tim came across a news article about a big fentanyl bust near Richland. He decided to merge his tale of vampires with modern-day addiction in a small town. “What if I made these bats bite people and they get radiated, and what they want is more and more, just like more and more drugs? But instead, that drug — to add my supernatural twist — that drug is toxic waste.”
Like any good story, relatable characters ground “Twitchland.” Van, a sweet and funny man who works at local hangout the Spudnut Shack, and his college-age daughter Ali, sleuth their way to the bottom of the drug/vampire crisis. Spoiler alert: They save the town. At least, until Tim’s fourth installment of what started out as a trilogy. Hint: Werewolves may be coming next.
Mexico-based graphic artist Pyrink illustrates the series. He excels at drawing glowing tanks of nuclear waste, and of the Columbia River landscapes with sinister nuclear reactor towers tucked into the corner. Tim found Pyrink on Upwork. He sends the artist photos of the area and gives him an idea of what typical Richlanders look like.
Depicting Addiction
Tim thought a lot about how to integrate addiction into a supernatural and often funny graphic novel. “I wanted to write it in a way that wasn’t too disturbing and didn’t turn people off. Like at first I thought, are they shooting it? Are they smoking it?” Ultimately, he decided the toxic waste drug could be delivered like an acid tab that melts on the tip of your tongue.
Nor did he want to glamorize the ritual of buying drugs in alleys and getting high. “Once they take it, they go into the bar and they’re all dancing, having fun. So that’s a delicate act to say take this pill and your life’s going to be great.” He had to balance the fun with gnarly withdrawal panels. “I would tell the artist let’s have people laying around the alley. I had to be really careful with how I did it all.”
My favorite twist was that the addicts, drawn to toxic waste, can sniff out people who work at the Hanford tank farm. The drawings of toxic tweakers sneaking up and smelling people’s necks were hilariously creepy.
Hometown Hero?
The Spudnut Shack where the series’ main character works is based on Richland institution the Spudnut Store, maker of potato-based donuts. “Do they sell your books?” I asked Tim, as this seemed to me like a great outlet.
He hesitated. “No. It’s an interesting question.” He’s not sure if anywhere in the Tri-Cities stocks his books. “I just don’t know how it would go over there. People might like it. They might hate it.”
Some of his hometown friends and family members have questioned his stories. “It’s not a slam on Richland,” he said. “It’s no secret there’s a nuclear reactor there.”
Everyone he knows from his childhood has either worked at Hanford or had family members work there. As he writes in one panel of “Twitchland,” “The cleanup out there is going to continue for decades. Billions more dollars are being put into it. There are still over 50 million gallons of that toxic shit buried underground.”
But it’s one of those elephant-in-the-room problems that people don’t always want to talk about. Like addiction. Instead, they sweep the elephant under the rug. Which makes for a very bumpy rug. And which makes “Twitchland” a fun read for people like me who are interested in pulling the rug back and examining things like toxic waste, addiction and the supernatural.
Addiction Fiction Sobees Score: 4 out of 5
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