176 pages; softcover; black and white

Set in rural England, Carol Swain's Gast is the rare kind of contemporary graphic novel that critics are imagining when they exult over the promise of the art form - a philosophically mature vision, uniquely executed by an artist wholly in control of her craft. In Gast, Swain's main character Helen's inner life is slowly revealed through a mixture of naturalistic detail and phantasmagoric occurrences.