Lupus

This brooding sci-fi saga from Peeters (The Smell of Starving Boys) rides along with a wayward traveler through outer space’s strangest, most hallucinatory reaches. Lupus and his childhood friend Tony have set out on a haphazard, hedonistic trip: they aim to see some sights, do some space–sea fishing, and spend as much time as possible on whatever drugs they can get their hands on, much like a Fear and Loathing friendship of the hyperspace set. But picking up Sanaa, an alluring tight-lipped runaway, turns their jaunt into something more serious, first seeding jealousy between the men for her attention, then when Sanaa’s powerful father gets involved, leading them into outright danger. Peeters’s black and white brushwork is a versatile marvel, capturing everything in lush detail, from the menacing murk of deepest space to the delicate curve of Sanaa’s hip. As the sprawling graphic novel grows to encompass odd alien life-forms along with the quiet corridors of an abandoned vacation planet, his visuals grow ever more adventurous and assured. Peeters explores the drive to lose one’s self in something larger, and renders Lupus’s obliteration as terrifyingly dark as it is extravagantly beautiful. The result is a melancholic/psychedelic triumph of graphic fiction. (Feb.)