In 2005, former Speech Bubble guest and legendary Canadian cartoonist Seth wrote an appreciation of Chris Reynolds' work in The Comics Journal calling him, “The most underrated artist of the last 20 years.” Prior to that essay, Reynolds' distinct heavy black and white cartooning style and indescribably bizarre, but also greatly nostalgic and reminiscent stories remained in relative obscurity as he toiled on them from across the pond in the UK. Now, thanks to a May 2018 reissue of his work in a beautiful graphic novel from the New York Review of Comics designed by Seth himself, North America will finally get to experience the melancholy of Reynolds' Mauretania Comics. Called The New World: Comics from Mauretania, it's the complete collection of Reynolds' work that began in the 1980s and features some of the greatest touchstones from that world, including The Monitor, Cinema Detectives and Rational Control.

Mauretania looks a lot like the English countryside of our world, but in the background it appears there's been a subtle alien invasion that's perhaps is causing people to disappear from photos, buildings to suddenly disappear and people that have previously died to come back to life. But the comics are not really about the plot, but the feelings they evoke in the people who read them. On the podcast, Chris tells us that his work is a response to the changes in life: the moving to a new city, the passing of a loved one and the journey to a new place and reconciling his past with his present. He also frustrates Aaron to know end by letting him know the most bizarre elements of the work serve the story first and there's no over-arching conspiracy.

Seth's appreciation of Chris Reynold's work that originally appeared in The Comics Journal

The official home of Mauretania

Buy The New World from The New York Review of Comics

@NYRcomics

@nyrcomics

A celebration of Chris Reynolds from The Comic Book Evangelist

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