Followers of superhero comics and non-superhero comics is perhaps acquainted with the identify Jeff Lemire. Lemire is a comic book ebook author and artist who has labored on mainstream superhero books like Superboy, Moon Knight, and Inexperienced Arrow. He has additionally labored on his personal creations, together with Candy Tooth, about an antler-headed boy navigating a post-apocalyptic panorama, and Gideon Falls, about folks from all walks of life who come into contact with the mysterious, universe-crossing Black Barn. Lemire has persistently demonstrated a writing model that blends each the unusually unreal and the uniquely human, and he has doubled down on that formulation in his newest mission Fishflies, which he not solely writes however illustrates.
Canadian Lemire has set this surreal fairy story in small city Canada. In Belle River, Ontario an armed theft has left a boy within the hospital combating for his life and a wounded man who’s on the run from the authorities. Because the manhunt continues, this fugitive finds the house of younger outsider Franny Fox and Franny affords him shelter, however this fugitive is quickly remodeled by a curse rooted within the city’s historical past and one which calls for blood.
Lemire’s story combines the sweetness of Candy Tooth and the surreal horror of Gideon Falls. Younger Franny Fox, an ostracized lady who comes from a damaged dwelling, would possibly remind Lemire followers of Candy Tooth’s Gus. Nonetheless, Lemire has stuffed Belle River with different endearing, three-dimensional characters like officer Daniel Laroque, a cop who desires to do the correct factor and follows his coronary heart when logic stops working, together with Helen Dupuis, the only mom of the boy who was shot and who’s receiving little help from a city that considers her unusual. Lemire’s story additionally hints at physique horror, folks horror, and surreality that makes the ebook really feel like a contemporary fairy story.
Lemire’s artwork model additionally makes the ebook really feel like a kids’s ebook illustrated for an grownup viewers. Whereas a lot of Lemire’s personal books have been drawn by different artists who’ve included a wide range of types, Lemire’s personal model appears like a movie animated by the identical individuals who animated the stop-motion trendy fantasy Coraline, with facial options exaggerated simply sufficient to obviously present the attractive imperfection of humanity, asymmetrical faces and thick, darkish fear strains, whereas permitting for a spread of expressions. Using cooler colours additionally makes the ebook really feel like a darker however in the end uplifting bedtime story.
Librarians accountable for grownup graphic novel collections would possibly have already got some Jeff Lemire-penned books of their assortment and this one would make an ideal addition. Its story and artwork model would possibly remind Lemire followers of Candy Tooth, however with its middle in small city Canada, it illustrates the trauma skilled not by residing in an apocalypse however the trauma of residing in a world the place society retains rolling even because it threatens to roll its folks over.

Fishflies
By Jeff Lemire
Picture, 2025
ISBN: 9781534395176

NFNT Age Advice: Grownup (18+), Older Teen (16-18)
Creator Illustration:  Canadian,