Southern Cross

A trippy, sci-fi mystery set on a Titanic like cruiser (in space), Southern Cross is one genre bending graphic novel set around the character Alex Braith, a passenger on the freighter Southern Cross who is on her way to retrieve the remains of her suspiciously deceased sister from the mining colony in which she worked. She wants to know why her sister died and it turns out that the Southern Cross is exactly the right place to start asking these questions, especially when strange occurrences start happening. Cloonan and Belanger create an amazing level of tension as (strange) things start to happen on the ship. Kuddos to them. I really enjoyed the setting. It's almost entirely set on a space freighter, and it really and truly does feel like a freighter. It sort of reminded me of one my favorite movies, Alien. There's a certain level of grittiness applied to the imagery that works. Towards the end of the volume, the story takes a turn in the direction of say something that is more akin to the genre the new weird or dare I say, Lovecraftian horror. It wasn't too unexpected but still it was intriguing and thrilling enough to make me what to pick up vol.2.

in Vol. 2 we meet Hazel, a retired detective, who gets involved in the search for the Southern Cross as tensions and violence break out on Romulus, a harsh dingy mining rig on Titan. Hazel Conroy is a great protagonist to follow into this ever more bizarre mystery; think Miss Marple meets Alien and you'll get an idea of what this volume is like. And Hazel is a great reverse of a common trope. There isn't much of Alex in this volume but the moments with her are highly intriguing and bizarre.

Although my rating changed between books I'm eager for the hiatus to be over in this series!