Graphic Novel Review: METAX by Antoine Cossé

Posted on July 12, 2022 at 6:21 am by Gene Ambaum

METAX by Antoine Cossé. Fantagraphics, 2022. 9781683965152. 300pp

Cossé is a storyteller who uses large images, space, the level of detail in his art, along with a spare use of color, to tell compelling stories. This one is both futuristic and fantastic. It opens with the murder of a horse owned by the king of Ronin City. It’s the second murder in as many days. The masked “terrorists” fleeing the scene of the crime take pills and transform to make their escape.

In a mine an engineer sets off an explosion as part of the ongoing hunt for METAX, a mineral or the like that’s in short supply and that hasn’t been found for a while. It’s at the heart of Ronin City’s prosperity. It’s not too long before princesses arrive with the king’s advisor Mister Wig to threaten the engineer and his family.

There’s murder, mayhem, a magical garden, and a bit of magic in the rest of the story, an episode in a much larger tale that happens outside these pages. There’s a lot of images to love; my favorite by far are the pages showing the blasting in the mine at the front, and every page that has a bird on it.