Tomorrow.
Written by Jack Lothian.
Art by Garry Mac.
Colours, design and lettering by Sha Nazir and Kirsty Hunter.
Flatting by Greg Watt.
51 pages - Full Colour - Published by BHP Comics.
The Story - This is a book that opens quietly. We see the beach at an unnamed seaside town and the sea beyond. In the sand you can see the indentations of two bums and four feet. A couple have sat here alone and you imagine that they have looked out to sea. A shadow of a love left as a moment of time in the sand.
The scene then changes to an alarm clock going off and a little old lady getting out of bed and heading to the shops. She seems alone yet cheerful. She heads down the high street to the local supermarket and is rudely brushed off when she tries to make conversation with the young woman cashier. She seems unbothered and heads home and then to bed. She is awoken later that night by noisy music from the flat above. She heads up and politely complains to the chav at his door but is again bluntly rebuffed.
The following day her routine continues again except that this time she finds that the streets are empty. There is nobody about anywhere. Everyone has gone and she is actually (rather than emotionally) alone. She cries ‘Hello’ but no one answers. Until she turns a corner and finds some strange short and squat aliens dismantling a wall. As she attempts to hide two taller, grey and centaur legged humanoids pass her and ignore her. She is scared but realises that these creatures will continue to just ignore her.
So the little old lady continues with her life. She continues to shop and wash her clothes until one day whilst hanging her smalls on the line she is approached by one of the worker aliens who has hurt its hand. She takes it in and dresses the wound. She gets attached to it and begins to see this small being as a surrogate child and starts dressing it up as a baby. One hilarious moment has her dressing it up in a toddler’s sailor costume and taking it to the seaside.
We suspect that this will not end well......
The Review - This is actually the first comic that I have discovered and then reviewed after obtaining my Comichaus app and membership. I think that it may also be one of the first books that I have reviewed from BHP Comics, it won’t be the last. It’s a great little book. It speaks to a theme of elder loneliness through the framework of an alien invasion and seeming extermination of mankind. It’s not every day that you see those two in the same comic.
It is also a fun read. The writing and art combine to present a quiet style of storytelling that is pitched in just the right tone to make you smile, be a little creeped out and also give you the odd sad moment. the visuals carry much of what is going on here. The writer allows the artist to carry the narrative without interrupting it with speech or thought bubbles, this is deftly done. The art is clean and open and coloured superbly. Garry Mac manages to carry both the scenes that have literal scope and size to the smaller more personal moments with facial acting done with subtlety and care. I’d love to see what he handles next.
You warm to the little old lady and see her as both cute and polite but also really brave both in the post apocalypse world and also when dealing with the ghastly rude and chavvy people she comes across before everyone disappears. She is perhaps less alone after this event than before. It is also a book that will stay with you and get you ringing your mum to make sure she has the radiators on and enough shopping during this cold snap.
Highly recommended.
I read this on Comichaus but you can also get a hard copy through the app or directly from www.bhpcomics.co.uk and follow them on Twitter @BHP_Comics
Many thanks for reading.
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