Finally, you think, some of the emotional grotesquerie that helped make Brooks a star in over-the-top early-’90s hits like “The Thunder Rolls.”

The tale itself often drifts away from the suspense-driven logic of conventional horror into realms of gauzy romance, surreal grotesquerie and demented trippiness.

Although he seems conjured from fluid lines and angular grotesquerie, Ikeda created him dot by dot — a painstaking and no doubt time-consuming process.