It’s time for our weekly Comics Round-Up and this time we are bringing you a spotlight on the comic book Another Realm. So lets break down our thoughts on the book.
Overall
Another Realm is a career-spanning collection from British-Ukrainian illustrator and cartoonist Kristyna Baczynski, an artist whose work has bridged zine culture and big publishing, including collaborations with Penguin Random House, Hachette, 2000 AD, Carlton, and Canongate. This book gathers the best of her self-published comics and illustrated zines alongside her longer work, so it works as both a greatest-hits album and a first introduction.
The book is built in four parts: the headline graphic novel Retrograde Orbit, five medium-sized stories, a “Short and Sweet” section of twelve tiny tales, and a few pages of gallery art at the end. The stories aren’t connected to each other, so think of it less as one narrative and more as wandering through an artist’s world, room by room.
Her inspirations run from nature and folklore to 1990s pop nostalgia and gentle sci-fi, and the result feels warm, strange, and deeply human. The pages are alive with color, and just as striking are the moments when a story drops into monochrome. Those shifts break the visual language of the section you’re in and make the changes of mood impossible to miss. You’ll also find tender autobiographical pieces and some very expressive characterization.
Book Stats
- Writer: Kristyna Baczynski
- Releases: 28th October UK / 2nd December US
- Page Count: 256 pages – paperback with french flaps
- Cost: £19.99 / $24.99
Main Story Premise: Retrograde Orbit
The centerpiece of the collection is Retrograde Orbit, a coming-of-age tale of identity, heritage, and finding your place in the cosmos. It follows Flint, who lives with her mother in the colony of Swift Springs on the mining planet Tisa, at the outer edge of the solar system. Her family was displaced by a nuclear event and settled there two generations ago to work as miners, and Flint is nearly old enough to start her apprenticeship at the refinery.
The question hanging over the story is whether the home her family built is enough for her, or whether a mysterious, irradiated planet will pull her away. If she leaves to forge her own path, is she betraying her family, or honoring their legacy? It’s a sci-fi setting, but at its heart it’s about family, how we define ourselves, where we come from, and who we are.
One of the story’s quietest tricks is how it handles time. You can feel it passing through the illustrations alone, as the art shifts in subtle ways that let you sense the days and years moving along without anyone having to announce it.
Sub Story Information
The stories surrounding Retrograde Orbit are an adventure all their own. Some are only a single page long, and they hit surprisingly hard. Others are wonderfully out of this world, in both how they feel and how they look, starring characters that aren’t human in appearance but still go through very human emotions, including the kind most of us would never say out loud. It’s a collection that proves you don’t need many pages, or a human face, to make a feeling land.
My Take
Admittedly, what first drew me to this comic was the illustration and color of the cover. Just like a movie poster has a few seconds to catch your interest, so does a book cover, and this one got me.
As I went deeper into the main story, knowing nothing about the artist or the comic, I found myself seeing myself in the main character. It’s hard when you’re young and you know there’s something out there calling to you, but you don’t know how to get there or who to talk to for help. The ending is satisfying because it also shows the other side of that: you love someone and want what’s best for them, so you support them, but you have to let them go, and follow your own path as well.
As for the rest of the stories, I’m very glad to see them all together. This was my first time reading this artist, so it was very cool to see the breadth of what she can create and what else goes on in her mind. Even the one-page stories took me back to the Sunday comics I loved as a kid, and still love today.
In summation, even if you don’t connect with every story (which I’d find hard to believe, given how deeply they’re rooted in the things that foundationally and emotionally connect us), I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. So clear a spot on your shelf and mark your calendar: Another Realm lands on October 28th in the UK and December 2nd in the US. Judge it by its cover if you must. I did, and it worked out great.
Pick up your copy when available, or pre-order it Here.
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