Lupus

Starred review from December 1, 2019

Acclaimed Swiss cartoonist Peeters (The Smell of Starving Boys) examines the complexity of human relationships--among friends, lovers, parents and their children--in this moving and unpredictable sf epic. While reconnecting on a drug-fueled interplanetary fishing trip, recent college graduate Lupus and military veteran and best friend Tony encounter a mysterious young woman named Sanaa, who insists on tagging along. The ensuing love triangle is soon interrupted by a bounty hunter determined to return Sanaa to her family. An act of shocking violence and some thrilling action sequences follow, but Peeters's true interest lies in dwelling on the quiet moments spent between dashes for sanctuary, first in a village inhabited by aging anarchists and later within an abandoned space station manned by malfunctioning robots, where forced intimacy leads to intense bonding, bickering, bitter resentments, and--while calling this a love story would be a real stretch--something like romance. VERDICT Peeters is a compositional genius, utilizing stunning swaths of negative space and thick fields of inky darkness that imbue nearly every panel on every page of this volume with dynamism and pathos.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 20, 2020
This brooding sci-fi saga from Peeters (The Smell of Starving Boys) rides along with a wayward traveler through outer space’s strangest, most hallucinatory reaches. Lupus and his childhood friend Tony have set out on a haphazard, hedonistic trip: they aim to see some sights, do some space–sea fishing, and spend as much time as possible on whatever drugs they can get their hands on, much like a Fear and Loathing friendship of the hyperspace set. But picking up Sanaa, an alluring tight-lipped runaway, turns their jaunt into something more serious, first seeding jealousy between the men for her attention, then when Sanaa’s powerful father gets involved, leading them into outright danger. Peeters’s black and white brushwork is a versatile marvel, capturing everything in lush detail, from the menacing murk of deepest space to the delicate curve of Sanaa’s hip. As the sprawling graphic novel grows to encompass odd alien life-forms along with the quiet corridors of an abandoned vacation planet, his visuals grow ever more adventurous and assured. Peeters explores the drive to lose one’s self in something larger, and renders Lupus’s obliteration as terrifyingly dark as it is extravagantly beautiful. The result is a melancholic/psychedelic triumph of graphic fiction.