Sex Abuse Victim Creates Graphic Novel To Describe Abuses Under School Headmaster

Cartoonist Glenn Head revealed for the first time the alleged sexual and emotional abuses he suffered as a child at a New Jersey boarding school in his new graphic memoir, "Chartwell Manor."

According to the book's description provided by publisher Fantagraphics, Head, now 63, was left with "emotional scars in ways that he continues to process" after spending two years in the namesake boarding school in the borough of Mendham that was closed down in 1984.

"Finding myself in Chartwell in the early '70s was like entering a real-world horror comic - depraved, criminal, and corrupting to so many who attended it. No one walked away unsullied," Head revealed prior to the 244-page graphic novel's May 25 release.

"No one asks for the childhood they get, and no child ever deserved to go to Chartwell Manor," read the official synopsis for the graphic novel.

The school, which Head described in the memoir as a "British-style" prep school, was run by headmaster "Sir" Terence Michael Lynch — a U.K.-born serial child molester who was convicted in 1989 for molesting 12 boys at Chartwell Manor. Lynch manipulated young boys into "cuddling sessions" after fondling and beating their nude bodies, the New York Post reported.

"'Sir' was a larger-than-life figure: clownish, exuberant, florid in his speech patterns, grandiose - almost a parody of a boarding school headmaster. He was also a pathological liar and a serial abuser of children. Too criminal for words, he needed to be drawn!" Head was quoted as saying in a statement.

It took the New York School of Visual Arts graduate almost 50 years to process his experiences before he was able to tell the story publicly, according to the book's official page.

"My bottom-line approach: You gotta know what I know," Head told the New York Post. "You gotta know what I feel like. What’s it like to experience sex abuse and what sexual behavior that may have grown out of that feels like. That’s the deal that’s made when someone picks up the book."

"Drawing Chartwell Manor and the truth of it became a matter of life and death to me. Without the truth, there's nothing," Head was quoted as saying. "Nothing in this book is invented, or exaggerated. It happened like this. To the very best of my ability, I drew it just as it happened."

The cartoonist said he also wanted to recapture Chartwell Manor's "gothic" vibe, which he said was similar to that of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the popular "Harry Potter" series of novels by J.K. Rowling.

"An ominous castle in the woods, this boarding school was gothic, haunting, atmospheric, to my 13-year-old eyes. Chartwell Manor, I always felt, was begging for the comic book treatment," Head said.

Head now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and their 20-year-old daughter, whom he said has not read the book. "But she knows she's in it," the cartoonist told the outlet.

The artist added that while he still bears some emotional scars from the alleged abuses, he considered himself to be among the lucky ones who got through the ordeal.

"I’ve been in touch with some alumni - and a lot of people I knew who were kids then committed suicide or are dead from drug overdoses. Others [got into] criminal things. A lot of that grew right out of that school. A great many students went through what I went through. Alcohol, drugs and sexual behavior followed that went part and parcel with this. I’m very lucky to have been clean and sober for some time," Head was quoted as saying.

Lynch, meanwhile, died at age 77 in 2011. Prior to his death, he was convicted again for assaulting three men between 2004 and 2005 at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Morristown, where he posed as a volunteer doctor doing hernia checks, genital exams and spankings.

His victims there received $780,000 for the abuse, while the students he abused in Chartwell Manor have yet to receive any civil compensation, according to the New York Post.