We Are Here Forever

May 27, 2019
Gish’s companion volume to her popular webcomic of the same name expands on its cartoon-apocalypse premise in a collection of charming, new-to-print short stories. Set in an undefined future after an unspecified extinction event wiped out human civilization, each story follows the adventures of the Puramus, a race of blobby purple catlike aliens who now populate Earth and whose cuteness is outweighed only by their naïveté. For the most part, any drama is low-stakes; will perpetually anxious Jingle work up the moxie to read her poetry at an open mic? Can the warrior trio of Pot, Box, and Bowl find their king a second “flarg” (actually a skateboard) in the rubble of a nearby city? There’s a shadow of the macabre in the background, though, in the unanswered question that becomes Jingle’s obsession: why are all the humans skeletons now? Gish’s goofy designs and cheerful coloring contrast jarringly (and hilariously) with the comic’s existential dread; the final chapters, which flash backwards to the aliens’ first contact with humanity, are laden with chilling foreshadowing. Much of the character development will be lost on readers unfamiliar with the webcomic, but the absurdity of the humor stands independently in this light spin on postapocalyptic fiction.

July 1, 2019
Meet the Puramus! They're purple. They're adorable. They're the sole inhabitants of Earth. With the mood of a stark apocalyptic tale and the corny humor of Sunday newspaper comics, each of the book's episodes focuses on a different set of the playful creatures. Each episode visits a different time period in the creatures' shared history, so readers can see how the Puramus build their society, repeating some of the mistakes of humans while trying to understand what came before. There are certainly a lot of big-picture questions in the background of the piece: Are the humans all gone? Did the Puramus kill them? With very few answers, some readers will be frustrated by the book's casual pacing and seeming lack of clues. Others, however, might not mind at all and will instead be delighted by the quirky characters and random events. Gish's simple cartoon artwork is the perfect match for the peculiar humor and compellingly offsets the bleakness of the Puramus' situation. Hand to fans of offbeat, thought-provoking absurdity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)