Retrograde Orbit

Kristyna Baczynski

Comic

A quiet journey of self discovery with a great visual style and just enough touch of science fiction. Very pleasant to see stories like this that aren’t about a science fiction concept – like I always clamour for – but it also isn’t transparently “about” some modern social issue. While sci-fi can do those things, and either is preferred to using scifi as a vessel for “coolness” grumble grumble, sometimes it appears this third “good” kind falls to the wayside.

My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies

Written by Ed Brubaker, Art by Sean Philips

Comic

This is probably the best duo in comics – although the only other duo I can think of is Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba – and I’ve only read a few of their smaller scale projects. They take traditional genre trappings and recontextualize them in very interesting ways, kind of like lampshading but they actually change the thing that is being referred to – and the reference is also only implied. I might be barking up the wrong tree here but that’s truly what they seem to do. Wonderful stuff.