Dark City

Dark City is a novel fantasy by Canadian cartoonist Mark Radcliffe. It was illustrated by Vanessa Chong and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Plot
A man, Jacques De Bergerac, is in a coma after being in a car accident. He finds himself in Dark City, where the land is dominated by strange living, breathing puppets and marionettes with button eyes.

The Lords of Dark Town are trying to kill Jacques, and use his body in the real world as a vessel for an agent of Dark Town. There's only one problem: Jacques' imagination. He carries it with him always, in a red suitcase. It protects him from the horrors of Dark City.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Jacques' wife decides to take him off life support. Jacques now only has 12 hours to live. Back in Dark City, Jacques encounters Death, who informs him of his time limit, and tells him how to escape Dark City. The book ends on a cliff-hanger, as Jacques is captured by a knight after wandering onto a chessboard.

Film adaptation
Dark City was the basis for the film Spongebone.