The New World Comics from Mauretania

Luxuriously published by New York Review Books, [The New World ] gathers together between hard covers a variety of work by Chris Reynolds, the cult Welsh-born artist who remains both underrated and too little known. The result is a collection that isn t only beautiful to look at and to hold; turning its pages, it strikes you that though these ineffably strange strips were written in another time, they work better in ours. Here, after all, is a world where technology must be treated with suspicion, workers perform random jobs whose nature is essentially pointless, and loneliness is the presiding spirit of the age .As the writer Ed Park suggests in his introduction, to call Reynolds s comics black and white isn t quite to do them justice; they re more like black and white and black and it s in that extra layer of darkness that his genius may be found. Rachel Cooke, The Guardian

"Since the mid-1980s, British cartoonist Reynolds has self-published his tales of Mauretania, set some years after Earth has been taken over by intergalactic invaders. . . . Over the years, Reynolds stories have amassed an enthusiastic cult (including the alt-cartoonist Seth, who designed this volume); this handsome compilation is bound to expand his following immensely. Booklist


"Reynolds stark black and white frames stop you in your tracks...It s also mesmerising and hypnotic. You want to read it again once you re done, and pore over its strangeness...Periodically books find their way to Bookmunch s maw that we don t expect and they blow our collective socks off. This is very definitely of that variety. Bookmunch

Spend some time with Chris Reynolds s The New World: Comics From Mauretania. . . Stark illustrations will envelop you in their contrasts the blanket blacks of the foreground, the impossible star-bright skies and you ll find yourself thumbing anxiously for the uncertain medium of shadows. The characters will elude you transient, distant, largely muted in their emotions and their struggles will become your own as you search for meaning in an increasingly mysterious world.   Christopher Notarnicola, The Paris Review Daily