Comics often overlap with books. Even the simplest graphic novel can deliver an incredible level of fantasy storytelling. Create mind-blowing worlds thanks to the talent of the artist, and populate it with a variety of exciting creatures generated by the unbridled imagination of the screenwriter. A perfectly normal statement, and yet comics are often dismissed by sci-fi fans as a low-brow species, incapable of even getting close to the level of a great novel.
Barnes & Nobles has put together six comics for fans of a wide variety of science fiction genres. You can safely take any book from this list, read it, and then ask for more.
Space Wars!
"Saga" by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples
Fans: Out in the Universe, Joe Haldeman's Infinity War;
She is from the planet Landfall, a vast world known for its advanced technology. He's from the small moon Crown, where magic prevails over technology. He has horns. She has wings. In an epic space drama, Alana and Marco, two warring nations trapped in a brutal interstellar war, are forced to go on the run after falling in love and having a baby. Their task: to protect their newborn daughter Hazel at all costs, and fate throws them to amazing alien worlds. And in the midst of a spectacular spectacle (and bad guys with TVs for heads on the trail) is the story of a family, with all the strengths and weaknesses and victims. It's not a romance novel per se, but Alana and Marco have already become one of the most popular sci-fi couples of all time.
Apocalypse!
Low by Rick Remender and Greg Tochini
Fans: "Bunker: Illusion" by Hugh Howie, "Songs of a Distant Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke, "Scar" by China Mieville;
Billions of years into the future, Earth's Sun has entered its next stage: expansion into a red dwarf that will eventually engulf the Earth and most of the entire system. In Low, the Earth's surface has been uninhabitable for thousands of years, and two underwater cities battle for the remaining resources as probes scour the stars for habitable planets. But there is less and less hope. This impressive setting acts as a backdrop to the history of the Kane family. In the water apocalypse, they experience a terrible tragedy, but continue to hope for a brighter future. In fact, they are practically the only ones who have not yet plunged into the abyss of despair and complete decadence. There are underwater mutants and pirates in the book, but at the end of the day it's a personal story about never giving up.
Satire!
Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landreau
Fans: The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin; The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood;
These days, fantasy comics, never known for their love for female characters, are increasingly putting them at the forefront. In this case, in the not-too-distant future, humanity has found the answer for recalcitrant women: a space prison. A funny, cruel and absolutely feminist book tells about an unusual women's prison. At once homage and parody, with the spirit of old prison films (with the addition of HBO's Oz), it is a sharp social criticism that loudly expresses indignation at the way we now treat women who do not want to follow the rules. At the center of one of the most enjoyable moments: Penny Roll, one of the best supporting characters in science fiction. She's big and black and loud, and incredibly, almost heroically, shameless.
Pulp Fiction!
Starlight by Mark Millar and Goran Parlov
To fans: books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, especially John Carter;
This is where we messed around a bit. It could take a long time to argue that this book is as superheroic as it is fantastical. But Mark Millar's story about an old man called to glory again borrowed more from Buck Roger than from Superman. Duke McQueen is a space hero, similar to John Carter, who once saved the planet Tantalus. Now, widowed and aged, he lives quietly on Earth and even his children do not believe his stories about interplanetary adventures. He is simply brushed aside and his best days are behind him until Tantalus needs help again. A very subtle but energetic story about a man who has a new chance to kick a couple of alien asses.
Monsters!
The Wake by Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy
Fans: The Thing, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne;
Another book with a couple of well-written female characters going to the underwater depths, but in The Wake, unlike Low, things happen a little differently. Here we are talking about scientific failures (with a pinch of Creatures from the Black Lagoon) and social responsibility. In a time similar to the present, Dr. Lee Archer leads a team that captures a strange mermaid-like creature for research. At some point, everything goes wrong and a bloody game of hide and seek begins. The second part of the story takes place in the future, two hundred years later, where a girl named Leward lives in a world of the consequences of human mistakes.
Robots!
Alex + Ada by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn
Fans: "Her", "Positronic Man" by Isaac Asimov;
What's a list of sci-fi stories without at least one robot? After the unfortunate end of a relationship, Alex receives an unusual gift from his grandmother: a late-model companion android Tanaka X-5, capable of simulating human relationships, including sex. Alex quickly falls in love with a new girlfriend, and slightly violates a strict law in order to open her mind. With it comes self-awareness, but threatens imprisonment. A new look at the classic science fiction question: what makes a person human, and when does it become unacceptable to treat a being as an object?
While comic book films are breaking every possible box office record, comics themselves remain an unknown culture for many, which is difficult to approach. Endless superhero series with no beginning and no end only reinforce this reputation. We have selected ten of the best comic series that are intended for an adult audience, do not contain people in colored tights, have the structure of a finished work, and can even remotely be considered science fiction.
The best sci-fi comics
I tried to omit the very obvious recommendations to read The Watchmen and V for Vendetta - you have probably already come across Alan Moore's imperishable. However, you can’t do without the classics, so let’s start with old and time-tested recommendations, and then gradually move on to newer and more experimental ones.
Transmetropolitan
Surely somewhere on the Internet you have already come across an image of a bald man in strange red-green glasses and with a spider tattoo on his head. He usually clutches a cigarette between his teeth and looks at us with a devilish squint. So, the name of this comrade Spider is Jerusalem, and he works as a journalist in the city of the future, which in the comic is simply called the City.
Despite the fact that Transmetropolitan is far from new (the first issue dates back to 1997, the last - 2002), it has not lost its relevance at all - neither in terms of the issues discussed, nor even in terms of technology.
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For example, on the very first pages, we come across a reasonable 3D printer that downloaded digital drugs from somewhere and, after a little glitch, printed the famous glasses for Spider. By the way, he himself is not alien to substances - otherwise, which of him is a follower of Hunter Thompson?
And don't let the bright colors confuse you: The city is a real dystopia. Three-eyed mutant cats roam the rubbish heaps, neon windows advertise sexual pleasures featuring Muppets, street children gnaw on in vitro grown human limbs, and so on and so forth.
Sitting on the roof of a strip club, Spider fights for the last crumbs of truth, justice and human dignity: he scribbles a column where, without embarrassment in expressions, he exposes corrupt politicians. In general, what's not to like here?
The Invisibles
It’s even a little strange to advise The Invisibles - this is a famous work that left a mark in the history of comics comparable to Watchmen. Retelling the plot is also pointless: acidic visions and references to pop culture, as well as the adventures of a team of extremely extraordinary personalities who wage a war for the freedom of human consciousness with the mysterious Outer Church - all this is much better to study in the original source.
You might ask what Mystique does on our list of the best sci-fi comics. The Invisibles is here more because of the themes of rebellion and counterculture. However, this comic may well be considered science fiction - just in a broad sense and without direct links to technology.
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I confess: having started more than once, I never finished reading The Invisibles to the end. It is characteristic that each time you read, you manage to find something new, but the process does not go quickly and easily. In general, stock up on patience - Invisibles are definitely worth it.
Y: The Last Man
And again a modern classic. Y: The Last Man began publication in 2002 and ended in 2008. On the pages of this comic, you will find a story about how a virus destroyed all men and male animals on earth, except for the main character Yorick and his pet monkey Ampersand.
Yorick, instead of becoming the main source of genetic material, carefully disguises himself and crosses America to get to the bottom of the causes of infection, find his beloved and (where else) to save humanity.
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Dialogue now and then unobtrusively turns into a discussion of gender inequality and gender stereotypes, but Y: The Last Man is unlikely to bore you with morality. Adventures with shooting, fights and frivolous disguises, post-apocalypse as a picturesque background, unobtrusive humor, bright characters and, in general, an extremely life-affirming mood help to swallow all 60 issues in a few days. So set aside a weekend or part of a vacation for this in advance, otherwise you may accidentally fall out of life.
tokyo ghost
If you're browsing this list looking for some real dark and melancholy cyberpunk, then here it is. Tokyo Ghost depicts a far future world that looks suspiciously like a grotesque version of the present: most people lead a vegetable lifestyle, addicted to the constant supply of digital entertainment.
The heroine, armed with a katana and a powerful hatred for what is happening, is at war with an artificial intelligence that has flown off the coils in order to save her boyfriend. True, all this can only be called science fiction with a big stretch, which sometimes stretches very thinly - especially when the ancient spirit of the earth brought by the heroes from Japan comes into play.
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The main advantage of Tokyo Ghost is how beautiful everything is: both drawn and invented. In addition, you won’t have to wade through dozens of issues and follow the branching of story arcs: we are talking about only ten thin books that came out from 2015 to 2016. To enjoy the unique style and look at another dark and hopeless world - more than enough.
Black Science
If there is dark magic, then why not dark science? Grant McKay, the protagonist of this as yet unfinished saga, invented, on the one hand, a wonderful, on the other hand, a frightening device. It allows him and his team to travel through an infinite number of parallel universes. And of course, everything does not go according to plan already on the very first pages.
The plot of Black Science is so famously twisted, and the worlds through which the heroes jump are so bright that it can make your head spin - especially if you read non-stop (and the temptation to do just that is great). Add to this the deep psychologism of endless reflections of the same story of love, betrayal and broken family relationships. But science is again at a minimum - contrary to the name.
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If you successfully swallow Tokyo Ghost and get addicted to Black Science, be sure to check out other comics by their author Rick Remender. First of all, I recommend Deadly Class - a story about the difficulties of the life of students of the school of murderers. This is something like Harry Potter, but with the strictest age rating and a bias towards the study of youth subcultures of the eighties and nineties.
The Private Eye
One day, all the information that people kept in the "clouds" was taken and poured with heavy rain: the protections collapsed and everything became instantly available to everyone. Since then, mankind has no longer trusted computers and has become much more concerned about privacy - so much so that you will not meet a person on the street without a mask on his face.
The Private Eye - the story of a private detective who finds himself in the center of a tangled story and deftly unravels it. But in this case, it’s not so much the plot that matters, but the author’s attempt to imagine what a hangover will be like after mass intoxication, in which we throw out a lot of personal data on the Web.
Surely the world of Private Eye will seem a little cartoonish to you, but for comics this is quite normal. Especially, of course, it's funny to see your own crooked reflection: the father of the protagonist is an aged gamer and gadget lover, a child of the early 2000s. He, suffering from senile insanity, pokes at the phone screen and cannot understand where the Internet has gone.
These figments of Brian Vaughn's imagination can be skeptical, but still worth a look, especially since the comic is distributed on a pay-what-you-you-can-don't-pay model and is available as a PDF.
Saga
If you're looking for something light and enjoyable to read in the evenings, but nonetheless so addictive that you want to come back again and again, it's hard to give a better recommendation than Saga. It's a Star Wars-sized space fantasy centered around a classic forbidden love story between two warring factions.
I will not retell the plot of the Saga, because it is not at all valuable. It attracts rather a riot of imagination, incredible scale and variety of colorful worlds and the races inhabiting them. It is especially pleasant to admire all this, since the Saga is drawn to match. The steepness of another turn is simply breathtaking.
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The Manhattan Projects
Perhaps the picture of Albert Einstein sawing an alien with a chainsaw is enough to characterize this comic. If such an image disgusts you, calmly pass by and practice snobbery somewhere else.
But if the picture seems interesting, then you will find many hours of entertaining reading matter. Book after book, an alternative world will unfold in front of you, in which scientists who had a hand in creating the American nuclear bomb are doing absolutely indescribable things.
Illuminati, alien invasions, secret deals with the USSR - the wildest conspiracy theories have been digested in the cauldron of imagination of the creators of Manhattan Projects. The resulting mess is carefully laid out in panels and seasoned with black humor. This may not be the most useful of intellectual dishes, but it turned out to be surprisingly digestible.
Until the last book (The Sun Beyond the Stars), dedicated to the space adventures of Yuri Gagarin and Laika, I have not yet reached, but I am looking forward to this moment.
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Dr. Sleepless
"Where's my damn jetpack?" "Where are our flying cars?" - the heroes of the comic book Doktor Sleepless ask questions. What they mean is that the future they (and us) were promised in the old science fiction never happened. Instead, they (like us!) now have completely different technologies.
The action of Doktor Sleepless takes place as if in a dead end of history, from which his characters are trying to escape. Chief among them is a self-proclaimed mad scientist. His madness manifests itself mainly in the form of rants, which he broadcasts using a pirate radio station. Its audience is representatives of radical subcultures like grinders (those who like to implant electronic implants in themselves) and Shrike girls who synchronize their sensations remotely.
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Unfortunately, Doktor Sleepless, which began with a bang in 2007, will never be finished, or even continued. A grenade with a sticker in the form of a smiling face thrown in the last (sixteenth) issue will remain hanging in the air, and the wiki attached to the comic no longer even opens.
However, if you like the work of Warren Ellis, already finished series like Planetary and FreakAngels will give you many hours of pleasure. I also recommend Ignition City - a short story about a semi-abandoned space city and the Injection series, which is just starting now and borrowed some ideas from Doktor Sleepless.
paper girls
The second season of Stranger Things has ended, and you want something else in the same vein? Read Paper Girls - it's even cooler in many ways. The four heroines of this comic book, having started to travel in time, can not stop and return home to the eighties. Instead, they have to face more and more mysteries, clues and amazing adventures.
On the way, the author manages to think interestingly about the changes that have taken place in our lives and in society over the past couple of decades. Add to that an unforgettable visual style (which the covers alone are worth!), and you will understand why this comic has become rapidly gaining popularity.
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A total of 23 issues are available so far - a great time to read them all in a couple of steps and wait for the next.
A little parting word
An attentive reader will surely notice that I cheated a little and half of the list is the same three authors: Warren Ellis, Brian Vaughn and Rick Remender. But I can’t help myself - it was with them that I began my acquaintance with modern comics, I was not disappointed and look forward to new creations. I hope you have an equally pleasant experience.
As additional guidelines, I can recommend looking at the publisher and the imprint under which the books are published. There's a lot of good stuff coming out of Image Comics these days, whereas DC's Vertigo and Wildstorm imprints used to target the same audience.
3 ratings, average: 5,00 out of 5)
The Adventures, Science Fiction magazine is a kind of sign of the times and a shameful page in the history of Russian science fiction, a literary garbage dump of the early 1990s. When the old Soviet science fiction died, and the new Russian (whatever it meant) had not yet appeared, Yuri Petukhov tried to fill the resulting literary vacuum in the niche of Russian science fiction literature with his magazine. All sorts of literary rubbish heavily spiced with chernukha, porno and dismembered found a place on its pages. And as the crown of all the activities of the magazine - Petukhov's five-book cycle "Star Revenge", which has long become a terrible legend of Russian literature, with which old readers scare newcomers.
Now, when I hear about the crisis in Russian science fiction, about the decline in the level of writing skills, about the dominance of mediocre MTA, I remember this magazine and understand that everything is not so bad now. History has once again proved that no matter what illnesses literature suffers from, healthy forces will prevail in it, and very clinical cases, like Rooster's offspring, will give up and be forgotten like a nightmare.
Bottom line: sometimes I regret that as a child I was too promiscuous in my book addictions, because partly because of this magazine, I developed a negative opinion about science fiction, which I had to overcome for several years. Those who have not come across this periodical are frankly lucky. Those who have read it, however, will most likely agree with me that Adventures, Fantasy is one of the worst (and possibly the worst) literary magazine that has ever been published in our country.
Score: 2
It was from this magazine that my acquaintance with the wonderful world of fantasy began! It was then Efremov, Strugatsky and others, and then ... Shock, surprise, shock, delight ... and many other completely different emotions, which, probably, I will never experience ... :pray: Desire, in the literal sense, to shaking in the hands, to profuse salivation and headache - to find out what happened next, how this work ended. The second time I experienced something similar, only when I picked up Lukyanenko's book, but this, again, was much later.
But the most important feeling is love, no, I have had a love for books since childhood, from the moment I learned this truly amazing occupation on earth - reading, but love for science fiction, for science fiction in general, for everything that can fall under this definition, not just fantasy literature. And if at first I read everything in a row, enjoying just the very process of reading, and rejoicing at any new information gleaned from the book, then after reading this magazine, I fell ill forever, with one genre. Indeed, it is in fantasy that the author is limited only by his imagination, and on the basis of this, it is fantasy that can be considered the highest expression of the writer's work, although, of course, this is only my personal opinion. And if the flight of the author's fantasy is compared with a stream, then the fantasy of the authors collected in this magazine can be compared with a raging mountain river that captures you in its course, sometimes even against your will, dipping headlong, and you only emerge for a moment to breathe, gain in the chest for more air and again dive into this amazing, beautiful, enchanting and exciting world of fantasy!
LITERARY AND ARTS JOURNAL Editor-in-chief Yu. Petukhov Alexander Chernobrovkin. KINSLER DIVES (fantastic adventure story) V. Panfilov. MOTHER (story) Alexey Kudryashov. A TALE OF TEMPTATION (story) by N. Yu. Chudakova, S.N. Chudakov. Panopticon. NOOSPHERIC THEATER (article) Andrey Ivanov. WITCH HUNT (story) Cover design by S. Atroshenko
Magazine "Adventures, Science Fiction" 3 "92 Yuri Petukhov
LITERARY AND ARTS JOURNAL Chief editor Yu. Petukhov Yury Petukhov. STAR REVENGE (continuation of the novel) Anatoly Fesenko. A STEP FROM THE DARKNESS (horror story) Cover design by S. Atroshenko. Design of the title by S. Atroshenko, illustrations by R. Afonin.
Magazine "Adventures, Science Fiction" 1 "92 V Andreev
LITERARY AND ARTS JOURNAL Chief editor Yu. Petukhov I. Voloznev. TREASURES OF SHAKHERAZADE I. Voloznev. HELL'S ROULETTE A. Chernobrovkin. THE RAT DEVIL B. Andreev. RESERVATION A. Logunov. STAYING THERE A. Logunov. UNDER THE CONSTELLATION OF THE OCTAPOD V. Potapov. GADENYSH N. Yu. and S. N. Chudakov. ATLANTIS, ATLANTS, PRATLANTS
Search - 92. Adventures. Fiction Mikhail Nemchenko
“... The crowd fell silent, as if bewitched by the gloomy sounds of savage words. Sparks from the torches flared up with might and main burst into darkness, the heavy side of the altar turned fantastically purple, reflecting the flames dangling in the wind. - Praise Satan! Let's glorify! the man in white shouted piercingly and authoritatively. Let's quench his thirst! - Blood! - crackling gasped across the clearing. - Blood! .. ”What is this, a scene from the depths of centuries? Alas, no ... The action of the opening "Search-92" story by A. Krasheninnikov "Rite", from where this passage is taken, is essentially unfolding in our days, or rather ...
Fiction 2006. Issue 2 Andrey Valentinov
Fans of national fiction! New stories, novels and articles by Sergei Lukyanenko and Evgeny Lukin, Leonid Kaganov and Yulia Ostapenko, Sergei Chekmaev - and the creative duet of G. L. Oldie! All this - and much, much more - in the new collection "Fiction".
Undefined Undefined
Fans of national fiction! Before you is another collection of the popular almanac "Fantastica", which has been published with unchanging success for nine years already! This collection includes not only new works by Sergei Lukyanenko and Vasily Golovachev, Pavel Amnuel, Viktor Nochkin, Alexei Korepanov, Yulia Ostapenko and other masters of the genre, but also the amazing, ironic journalism of Evgeny Lukin and the stories of young talented science fiction writers who are still gaining popularity and glory.
Fiction 2009: Issue 2. Snakes of Chronos Ivan Kuznetsov
Fans of national fiction! Before you is another collection of the popular almanac "Fantastica", which has been published with unchanging success for nine years already! This collection includes not only new works by Sergei Lukyanenko and Vasily Golovachev, Pavel Amnuel, Viktor Nochkin, Alexei Korepanov, Yulia Ostapenko and other masters of the genre, but also the amazing, ironic journalism of Evgeny Lukin and the stories of young talented science fiction writers who are still gaining popularity and glory.
FICTION. 1966. Issue 1 Nikolay Amosov
So, reader, before you is another collection of "Fiction". On the example of this collection, you can see how diverse fiction is. Here the story and the novel, the story and the play, fantastic parodies and humoresques. In the “New Names” section, in addition to the parody cycle by Vladlen Bakhnov, there is a story (by no means humorous, but rather traditionally fantastic) by A. Mirer “The Obsidian Knife”.
Adventure, Fantasy 1993 № 1 Natalia Makarova
Yuri Petukhov. "Riot of the Ghouls". Fantasy adventure novel. Alexander Komkov. "Test". Fantasy story. Natalya Makarova. "Werewolf". Horror documentary. Alexander Bulenko. "Executor". Fantasy story. Artists Roman Afonin, E. Kisel, Alexei Filippov. http://metagalaxy.traumlibrary.net
There aren't many sci-fi comics coming out lately. Not just exploiting the appropriate surroundings, but seriously thinking about scientific and technological progress and the place in it of a person with all his weaknesses, shortcomings and strengths. Fortunately, not everything is so sad and several science fiction comics have appeared, on the one hand, so different in drawing, plot and approach, but, on the other hand, common in one thing - travel to alternative universes. About them - in our review.
Black Science (Black Science)
Run through the poisonous jungle. Chase. Breakage, despair, and now one of the heroes is dying! We didn't even know the name.
"Black Science" throws you into the thick of things, immediately gives you a breath. Events are developing rapidly. What was it? We'll have to figure it out throughout the comic, but many mysteries will remain in limbo - for now, the publishing house " Fantasy Book Club” has released only the first volume, and in the original Image has already published 5 tpb, and at least three more are expected.
This is another story about traveling to alternate worlds where everything went wrong. Disgraced scientist Grant McKay, commissioned by a corporation, creates a machine to open a portal to the Multiverse. One day, she inadvertently transfers to another world not only the scientist with the team, but also his children, as well as the embittered supervisor Kadir, who is also a former classmate of the scientist. Immediately upon arrival in another world, the car breaks down: it can no longer be controlled by itself, but every few hours it restarts and sends everyone who is nearby, further, to the next world, but no one knows what it will be like and when they will return home.
What Black Science is really good at is Rick Remender's ability to build a story and play with time-space. The past is given out in small doses in flashbacks (where without them) on behalf of different characters, and the mosaic, warming up interest, gradually begins to take shape, although with each new story it becomes clear to the reader: there are no indispensable villains or heroes. Everyone has their own skeleton in the closet, genius does not mean a good character (or at least fidelity to a spouse), malice can be justified, and anyone could commit sabotage.
In the present, the heroes are waiting for trials, it is almost always action, and the tension grows abruptly from one tragedy through a small exhalation to another. Starting from a world inhabited by intelligent magic frogs, through an alternative history of the First World War, in which techno-advanced Indians attacked Europe, the heroes find themselves in a kind of interdimensional hub for a short respite and then to the planet of the apes, which are inhabited by glowing greenish souls. Each world is unique and unusual, something you rarely see in comics or on the screen, but, on the other hand, references to the historical eras of mankind are clear in everything: Aztec frog ziggurats, ancient Roman entourages of monkeys, typical Cherokee (albeit with a blaster).
And here Matteo Scalera did his best - a brilliant stylization of retrofuturism in the modern sense! He not only showed creativity in creating new worlds and filling them with recognizable elements, but also drew really alive and really different characters. His style - angular, sharp, dynamic - is perfect for action or action scenes, but also creates proper tension on calm shots. Dean White gave the comic an appropriate atmosphere with his color palette - purple, blue and red shades predominate here. In general, at first glance, the drawing has a European school (Scalera is Italian) and the inspiration of a classic sci-fi film.
But what irritates in Black Science is the abundance of internal monologues of the characters who regularly sigh about something and mentally suffer. These inserts curl like an annoying fly on almost every panel. It seems that one could try to find another way to convey the states and motives of the characters.
Ei8ht (8 eight)
At the end of last year, the publishing house “ white unicorn” released the comic “Eight” with a highly unusual story about time travel. The fact is that the authors of the series Rafael Albuquerque and Mike Johnson, in addition to the standard measurements of time (past - present - future), added a fourth - Meld. Everything that happens in this very Melda (for nothing it looks like Tatooine - everything is covered in snow) exists outside of time, and therefore a kind of cocktail is formed there from everything that we love so much in science fiction: dinosaurs, villains, Nazi cultists, technologies of the future and the past , and all this is filled with riddles and secrets, including on the basis of memory loss.
In order to make it easier for the reader to navigate the events, each timeline has its own color scheme, previously indicated at the beginning of the comic. Colors not only make it easier to navigate in a comic, but also serve to create an appropriate atmosphere. Thus, the Meldian yellow conveys the madness of this strange place and creates a feeling of constant tension, which contrasts with the blue of the future - a cold and indifferent place. On the other hand, the past is colored green - there is a riot of prehistoric vegetation, and the frenzy of relatively young life, and the present - it is purple, a sign of an unstable, ever-changing state.
Yes, someone will not necessarily like such simple colors (there are really few of them here) and a rough pattern, and this is understandable. The fact is that Rafael Albuquerque (by the way, the artist of the famous “American Vampire”) originally created “Eight” as a web comic and only then decided to remake it and publish it on paper. This explains the artistic limitations. But one cannot deny the wonderful and quite successful stylization - we are again faced with an attempt to play retrofuturism. In this and all the “wobbly-wobbly time-time bullshit”, the comic “Eight” is similar to “Black Science”. They are worth reading together.
The story is really short, the comic reads quickly, and the ending comes somehow simply and suddenly. It seems that somehow everything used to happen in these strange science fiction films of the last century, after a while you even get the feeling that you watched one of them.
Surprisingly, despite 4 parallel lines, the story in the comic is complete and does not require continuation. All riddles and mysteries have a logical explanation and get it to the latest release. It is a little strange that on the publication “ white unicorn” is worth one on the spine, although there is no news about a sequel. Not that this series needs it, but a new standalone story in this universe would be fun to read.
Paper Girls (Newspapers)
Paper Girls is a comic strip by Brian Vaughn and Cliff Chan about newspaper delivery girls in a small town where strange things start to happen around the height of Halloween. It is surprising that this comic came out in the same year as the Stranger Things series, because they are similar in many ways. The action takes place in the eighties, with children, in a small town and no one understands what is happening around.
If the first two comics are a friendly wink of 60s and 70s hard science fiction, then Paper Girls is definitely Spielberg. They have chrononaut heroes invading other worlds, and here our ordinary world is being invaded from the outside, and the whole action takes place against the backdrop of traditional American life with all these Hershey chocolates, the socio-political situation and stupid fashion in clothes.
Cliff Chan's art is superb, Matt Wilson's colors create a fantastic and even phantasmagoric atmosphere, and it's probably because of them that the series is still very well received. Things are quite different with Brian Vaughn's script. Vaughn is best known for the comic book Saga, which has been garnering a ton of awards since 2013, thanks in large part to the script. Unfortunately, Paper Girls cannot boast of this. Globally, the plot is interesting, but for some reason Vaughn devotes very little time to revealing the characters and instead throws us one twist after another without having time to explain them. Only in the first volume will we be shown dinosaurs, time travelers, nanorobots and, judging by the pace of their appearance, this is only the beginning.
The series deservedly won the awards for "Best New Series" and "Best Artist (Sketches)" in 2016 and may become a new "", but for this Vaughn needs to slightly change the approach to the plot.
The comic continues to come out. However, it was not published in Russian.