Afar, by Leila del Duca and Kit Seaton
In a future wasteland, a family of four contends with familiar obstacles to make ends meet, eventually leaving the teenage children to care for themselves while their parents travel to find work just as their eldest discovers a wondrous ability and their youngest gets into trouble. Leila del Duca’s Afar draws from many recognizable sources and lovingly twists them into something unexpected that should reach new audiences. The parents, facing both the father’s unreliability and the mother’s bouts of depression, recall overmatched caregivers from fairytales whose struggles open the door to adventure for their offspring as well as well-meaning but often helpless parents from emotionally realistic sci-fi young adult graphic novels like Space Dumplins . The tale woven for Boetema and her brother Inotu is interesting in that it could easily play out in a more familiar world; the specific sci-fi elements have very little bearing on their relationship or how they interact with their world. Th