British writer and illustrator Isabel Greenberg’s stellar run of graphic novels has taken in ice-bound fables and the Brontës. In this year’s thoroughly entertaining Young Hag (Jonathan Cape), a trainee witch sets out on a quest to mend the broken Excalibur and return magic to Britain. Greenberg gives Arthurian legend a feminist twist, complete with faerie tricksters, cat-riding knights and a meddling Merlin.
Art, dreams and reality form a near-seamless mesh in Final Cut (Pantheon), the unsettling and beautifully executed latest book from Black Hole creator Charles Burns. It follows Brian, an awkward young movie obsessive who lives with his alcoholic mother. He and his friends film tentacled aliens, forest trails and each other as sexual tension builds and Brian struggles to bend life to his script.
