Bell's Theorem (comic)

Bell's Theorem (original German title Die Wahrheit über Shelby, lit. "The Truth about Shelby") is a three-volume science-fiction horror graphic novel by German comic artist Matthias Schultheiss that originally published between 1985 and 1988. It was Schultheiss's breakthrough work as a graphic novel artist. The title references Bell's theorem from quantum mechanics.

It first appeared under the French title Le théorème de Bell in serialized form in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine L'Écho des savanes from 1985 onwards, before being published as three standalone volumes in Germany and France. It has been published in English (with a translation by Tom Leighton) as Bell's Theorem by Catalan Communications, with the English-language volumes titled Lifer, The Connection, and Contact, respectively.

In volume 1, Lifer, we're introduced to US American career criminal Shelby who has been sentenced to life imprisonment. The prison management makes him an offer to significantly reduce his sentence by volunteering for "mostly harmless" medical experimentation for a few years. Shelby agrees and is transported to the privately owned, high-security research facility, where it soon turns out that the experiments consist of new weaponry tested on criminals like him as targets, and he is informed that he can't withdraw his signature of consent retroactively. None of the criminals tested on so far is known to have survived long enough to be released.

While Shelby is recovering from his first experiment where he has been severely injured by a laser gun, he is one night secretly visited by Frank, one of the facility's inmates, who himself is already too damaged to flee by himself, as he is already half dead, half consisting of bionic implants the scientists only gave him so they could experiment on him longer. He gives Shelby civilian clothes and tells him how to escape from the facility.

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