Retrograde Orbit by Kristyna Baczynski was an Avery Hill book I felt I’d known about for a while before getting my hands on a copy…..and after reading it……..it became one of the many books I KNOW I should have read sooner.
It told the story of Flint as she wrestled her way through a life of expectation & yearning for something different and as an off-planet drama played out it soon became clear that the galactic Wonder Years was in my head to stay. Everything around that central character felt like a tangible element of the world that was created, from the characters trying to influence her decisions to the vastness of space providing the echo to her thoughts – it almost felt like the kind of book you could live as you read it in some sort of strange way.
That’s partly down to the delicate touches added into the writing & plot as well as the slick use of colour as the pages have been assigned a different tone for each stage in Flint’s life. Energetic, funny, somber & sad….it’s got everything and in a year where the depth of indie comics was increasingly on show…….it was Retrograde Orbit that joined a growing list of books I’m glad to own and glad to share with others (as long as they don’t fold the corners & shit…..ya know??). An automatic highlight for me.
G-Man
