Warning: Contains preview pages for Lure.
Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books has announced a new graphic novel from acclaimed artist Lane Milburn, titled Lure and Screen Rant is pleased to bring readers an exclusive first look. Fantagraphic published Milburn’s first graphic novel, Twelve Gems, in 2014, and will release Lure on November 2.
Since the 1970s, Fantagraphics Books has published some of the genre’s most highly acclaimed titles, such as Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers and Daniel Clowes Eightball and Ghost World, the latter of which was adapted to a feature film. The company also publishes definitive editions of classic comic strips, such as Prince Valiant and Pogo, as well as the Disney and Peanuts archives. In 2014, Fantagraphics published Lane Milburn’s Twelve Gems. The book was a hit with critics, and cemented Milburn’s status as one of the top cartoonists working today. Milburn rose to fame in the 2000s thanks to a number of self-published comics through Close Caption Comics, a Baltimore-based comic collective. The recipient of a Xeric Grant, Milburn’s cartoons have appeared in Vice, among others; he is currently serializing a comic, titled The Mosaic, through his Patreon. Twelve Gems was billed as a “campy, trippy, sci-fi adventure” and Milburn taps this vein once again in Lure to explore ideas of wealth, art and colonialism.
Fantagraphics Books has provided Screen Rant with a first look at Lure, including preview pages shared below. In the future, humans have colonized an alien world named Lure. The ocean planet becomes the playground of the wealthy, and when the effects of climate change start to make Earth uninhabitable, many begin to relocate to Lure. Jo Sparta, a young artist, is invited to participate in a year-long project on Lure; she and others will create a large art installation for Lure’s residents. Jo learns; however, all is not as it seems, and trouble is afoot.
The preview pages introduce readers to Jo, seeing her leave everything she has ever known behind for this once in a lifetime opportunity; readers also see her first day on Lure as well, as she marvels at this beautiful planet. The highlight, however, is the trippy dream sequence Jo has while in hibernation, an ominous vision of things to come on the seeming paradise planet of Lure.
Lure is tapping into many of the concerns of today’s world. Climate change is creating chaos around the world, sparking enormous forest fires in both America and Australia, as well as torrential rain and floods in other places. The gap between the haves and the have-nots continues to grow, and the arts become solely the playground of the wealthy. These issues collide in Lane Milburn’s Lure, from Fantagraphics Books, making it a vital graphic novel for our times.