What’s the Furthest Place from Here? Vol. 1

In this canny sci-fi thriller from Boss and Rosenberg, the writer-artist team behind 4 Kids Walk into a Bank, readers are thrown headfirst into a bewildering postapocalyptic world. Gangs of young people squat in abandoned buildings, scavenge ruins for clues to the past, feud with one another, and take food supplies and orders from mysterious beings called the Strangers. Pregnant teenager Sid belongs to the Academy, a gang headquartered in a record store whose members keep vinyl albums as personal totems. A rupture in the uneasy peace between the “families” sends Sid on a journey to answer questions about her bewildering society, with the Academy on her trail. Boss’s vibrant art has a gently cartoonified, design-centered appeal, similar to stylish superhero artists like David Aja and Chris Samnee, with offbeat abandoned cities, seedy exurban ruins refurbished Mad Max style, and arresting set pieces like a nightmarish carnival. The bone-cracking brawls allow Boss and Rosenberg to fill the pages with a seemingly endless array of weird street gangs—it’s hard to miss the obvious influence of the ’80s cult classic movie The Warriors—while stealthily developing the details of the kids’ makeshift society. The script clips quickly but is slow to give up its secrets. Fans of smart science fiction will anxiously await the next installment. (July)