After the Public Library Association’s 2026 conference, I had to stay in Minneapolis an extra day because of a blizzard sweeping across North Dakota. And after visiting the art museum to see the amazing Christine Sun Kim exhibit I hit a few used bookstores and Odd Mart, a store that has a wonderful collection of indie graphic novels. (It also sells gumballs for $28; each comes with a free T-shirt.) Here are two books I picked up there:
Testament by J. Marshall Smith. Bulgihan Press, 2025. No ISBN. 118pp.
283 people and a T-3 series caretaker android spend years in a ship to get to Testament, a planet too distant from the United Colonial Fleet Authority to be viable for colonization. It’s a world full of life for them to explore, both with science and via the arts. But it’s a one-way voyage. The colonists won’t have any kids, but they do have religious faith.
This is the story of the T-3 as it cares for the final two living voyagers, and then the last one. It’s a story of love and faith, and those don’t usually hold my attention. This one did. It’s beautiful.
Showtime by Antoine Cossé. Breakdown Press, 2017. 9781911081029. 176pp.
This is the story of a road trip that’s part of an epic magic trick. It’s strange, compelling, and delightful in ways it’s hard to explain without spoiling it. Give it a read if you can get your hands on a copy.
I’d read Cossé’s Mutiny Bay and Metax, and the only consistent thing about Cossé’s style is his ability to surprise me. Drawings that I’d have a hard time puzzling out by themselves work flawlessly as part of his sequential narratives. In particular, I love the way his art expresses space and motion, and how he switches between highly detailed drawings and others that look like they were drawn hastily with a marker.
