‘Identical’ is a uniquely disturbing sci-fi tale about closeness and distance between twins

How can an identical twin describe the experience of being a twin to someone who can’t truly know how it feels? If you’re Leah Hayes, you do so by creating an introspective science fiction allegory, Identical, that taps into feelings we can understand—the tenacious-yet-fragile bonds between close siblings and our fears of mental illness, emotional distance, and artificial intelligence.

The story’s timeline begins with a single woman who wants to have children but is unable to. She is told by a persuasive doctor that she’s a strong candidate for a new IVF treatment that is enhanced by artificial intelligence. She’s so eager that she forgoes caution. The treatment is successful, with a couple of added surprises.

The woman manages a difficult pregnancy on her own and gives birth to twins. Hayes, who has an identical twin sister, brings firsthand experience to her exploration of the dynamics. “Being a twin has informed everything about the book,” she says. “It's about my relationship with my twin, but also about my relationship to the world around me through the lens of being an identical twin, which is a very different lens.”

The tale is narrated by one of the sisters. Hayes chooses not to assign names to them (or any of the other characters), making it intentionally challenging for the reader to distinguish one twin from the other. “I liked leaving it open,” she says. “Throughout much of my life, my sister and I were always referred to as ‘the twins,’ or ‘the Hayes girls.’ So my name didn't even always come up, and hers didn't either. Our twin-ness preceded us.”

“Twin-ness” is central to the narrator’s identity. She is bound to someone who has been with her since the womb, part of an inseparable pair. While deeply comforting and anchoring, that relationship also creates opposing tensions: loss of self and loss of connection.

The first images we see after opening the book are faceless twins. The narrator laments, “This is a story about my sister… / And I guess, me. / Sometimes I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

She later becomes distressed when individuality and unpredictability carve a gap between her and her sister. As they grow up, one sister is more cautious; the other is more reckless. Their dynamic is represented in a beach scene: The sisters swim close together but in opposite directions. One wears a bathing cap and looks back at her sister nervously. The other is cap-free, face forward, eyes closed, in her own world.

Hayes pushes into more unsettling territory as one sister begins to behave mysteriously, for reasons her twin cannot fathom. Mood swings and outbursts—“brain attacks,” the narrator calls them—widen their gap. These problems can cause worry in any relationship. For twins, Hayes says, such concerns can be intensified: “The idea that someone close to you can ‘go away’ or become unrecognizable due to depression or anxiety … when it's someone whose mind you feel like you can ‘read’ all of the time … it’s even scarier.”

We share the mother’s shock when she is informed, weeks after the treatment, that one of the twins is not human; she is humanoid…bum!-bum!-bum!…an artificial human created using AI technology. The woman seized the opportunity afforded by the new technology to achieve a pregnancy that she otherwise could not. Without fully understanding the implications, she ceded control to the scheming doctor who exploited her unwariness to achieve his own ambitions.

The girls grow up not knowing. Even the AI-generated sister cannot tell.

AI is the queen mother of 2026 trigger words. The first mention of AI, like a dam breaking, unleashes our complex feelings about this powerful technology into the narrative. It did for me, anyway: rogue AI agents, thrilling new capabilities, concerns about accuracy and hallucinations, valuable efficiencies, existential worries about jobs and human viability, the proliferation of data centers, and the trampling of copyrights and exploitation of creators’ work to train AI models.

Hayes offers her feelings: “I am concerned. And horrified. I am not a fan of AI from a creator standpoint. I teach illustration and graphic novel writing to seniors in college, and I have seen the use of AI in the classroom really f**k up everything in the last few years. It's confusing the conversation between our natural ability and our sense of trust—in art, in the world we see through our own eyes. And young people are growing up with this distrust baked into their lives.”

AI is a big part of the story. It elicits fear and puts the sci in sci-fi. But I think my own preexisting attitudes about AI prompted an outsized initial reaction. AI functions more as a destabilizing presence than a villain. Hayes adds, “Much of this book is about anxiety and depression, which is partly what the AI ‘non-human’ reference is all about.”

The story takes a dramatic turn when the doctor realizes that the AI twin could “dominate.” Like Doctor Frankenstein, he decides his “unnatural” creation should be “discontinued.” The doctor’s position reminds us of the public pleas of AI executives who once championed uninhibited AI expansion but now proclaim they favor a more cautious pace.

The doctor character extends beyond the AI metaphor. “I was also exploring the idea of ownership as a parent/father. The doctor feels a bit like a "father" figure to the twins,” Hayes reflects. “I liked this idea as a scary concept, and it also tied into the fear that one of the twins had about losing her sister … potentially to a parent who was not in her life at all and has no right to take her back.”

Science fiction about AI often features fast-paced action and violent spectacle—think The Matrix and The Terminator. Identical is quiet, inward, and psychological. The story remains focused on the twins’ relationship. The art and design of the book reinforce the tone.

The art is presented in a somber blue and white. “The blue was a choice,” Hayes says. “I love making books that are all one dominating color, and it is a bit of a sad book at times, so the color was fitting.”

The drawings are in Hayes’s signature style. Characters and objects are simplified and stylized. Scenes are spare, with abundant space between objects. The reader is invited to enter and be in that space. Our attention is focused on disquieting environments and the characters’ stoic faces, both of which capture a melancholy mood.

Objects—tables, chairs, omnipresent coffee cups—are drawn with shifting, cubist perspectives that create an off-kilter vibe.

Hayes often positions her characters with their backs to us (including, cleverly, her bio image at the back of the book). The tactic creates unease. She credits filmmakers Wong Kar-Wai and Alfred Hitchcock for inspiring the approach. “I think there's so much there when you 'shoot' something (or draw something in a frame of a graphic novel) from behind,” Hayes explains. “There's mystery, intrigue, and it's just more interesting as an angle than looking at someone face-forward.”

These views from behind reveal another distinctive Hayes detail—dashed lines defining the characters’ spines, an interpretation of form also seen in her previous work. She recalls, “I started drawing backbones years ago when I was drawing people from behind and thought the expanse of the back needed some ‘direction.’ And I've been doing it ever since!”

I know from my years as a newspaper design lead that paper is a major expense. Economy of pages was crucial to maintaining a profitable business. “Going up in pages” for the sake of an expansive layout required trust, convincing arguments, and, sometimes, passionate pleading. I have two children. I used to have four, but I traded two for a double-page spread during a major news event (wink). So I was struck by the exceptionally roomy layouts of Identical and the commitment they represent.

There are no jam-packed pages. Every page is allowed to breathe—in some cases, deeply. Some pages include a single phrase, such as “And I guess, me.” One two-page spread says, in small type, “Part” on the left page and “Four” on the facing page. One page is simply a field of dark blue inserted as a pacing device. The spacious layouts add gravitas and slow the reading experience to match the contemplative tone of the story.

Hayes, who is also credited as a designer on the project, did not have to sell any children or internal organs to the publisher to get approval for the layouts she wanted. She praises Fantagraphics for giving her that freedom: “Fantagraphics is lovely for so many reasons, but one of my favorite things about working with them is how open and welcoming they are to the writer designing the book as well. I wanted this book to really feel like a honker—a big book with heavier matte pages and a strong palette, and that's what we did.”

Yes, you did. You created a compelling honker indeed.

Creator: Leah Hayes (website; Instagram)
Publisher: Fantagraphics; September 2026; 144 pages; hardcover