Number 39- Royal City Volume 1: Next of Kin- Jeff Lemire

 

And this was the second of the pair of Jeff Lemire graphic novels. Volume 1 of his Royal City saga.

A struggling writer returns to his roots in the eponymous city after his father suffers a stroke.

To say the family is dysfunctional would be a vast understatement. His little brother Tommy drowned several years earlier as a child, and his siblings and his mother are all haunted by a different version of Tommy.

We are thrown into the internal politics of the family and the city itself.  His family run the manufacturing plant which is the heart of the town's wealth, but they're struggling badly.

I was starting to feel real emotions for this cast of characters, and then the book finished. The characters are well drawn and utterly believable, even the ghost.

This is all illustrated by Lemire as well as scripted. His artwork is distinctive. I tend to find it quite ugly until I settle into the story, at which point it weirdly makes sense and starts looking strangely pretty. 

Again, I need to order part 2 of this sooner rather than later. This is Lemire at the height of his creativity.