Posted in: Comics, Indie Comics, Review | Tagged: aftershock, Jen Hickman, lonely receiver, Review, Zac Thompson

Lonely Receiver #2 Review: A Week of Spiraling Shame

The debut issue of Lonely Receiver was the break-up. This is the fallout.

Lonely Receiver #2 is a feverish trip into the mind of a heartbroken woman, Catrin, who lives in a future that seems far from where we are in some ways and alarmingly close in others. The issue takes place in a single week, showing Catrin's struggles that morph and twist into horrible new shapes with each day. Questions haunt Catrin: I gave my ex a piece of me; what is she doing with it? How can I look at myself with anything other than shame when my entire being, emotionally and sexually, and even financially, is tied to another? Am I a bad person? Writer Zac Thompson leaves no shame unexplored as he writes a comic that seems less like it's telling the story of a breakup but rather recreates the feeling of a break-up in the reader.

Artis Jen Hickman continues to deliver on Lonely Receiver with twenty pages of beautifully realized madness. Their artwork leans into the shame of this issue, with color palettes that bathe Catrin in a sickly green while the world outside seems vibrant and warm. Hickman's work is beautiful in its perfect communication of the mood, in its horror, and in its staggering empathy. Letterer Simon Bowland's choice of hot pink captions with white text for Catrin is perfectly at odds with the art, creating a brightness inside that seems to evoke what Catrin wants to feel, which contrasts with the harsh reality of this week post-Rhion.

Sci-fi fans will also find Thompson and Hickman's depicture of the future to be unique and thrilling, with technology that marries with organic material in strange ways. Stay tuned to Bleeding Cool for a second follow-up interview with Zac Thompson as we explore the dark depths of Lonely Receiver.

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