I was first exposed to Tyler Boss’ work, as I think many people were, in 2016-17’s 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank from Black Mask Studios, written by Matt Rosenberg. The miniseries tells the story of four friends who, well, plan a bank heist for a variety of complicated reasons. Rosenberg’s writing is charming, the voices of the kids clear and distinct. But what really wowed about the series was Boss’ idiosyncratic artwork.
4 Kids was a critical success, and it seemed a no-brainer that Boss and Rosenberg would follow it up quickly, and indeed, at February 2018’s Image Expo, they announced they were re-pairing, with a new series titled What’s The Furthest Place From Here? This new series seemed imminent, with the pair selling an ashcan edition of the first half of issue #1 in November of that year at New York Comic Con. The ashcan promised a smart, weird and moody comic, set in a near-future apocalyptic world with no adults. Alas, we waited and waited for a solicit that seemed to be forthcoming any month now, but never seemed to materialize.
Then, on May 16 of 2019, Boss tweeted out a cryptic message: a red emoji heart, a black emoji heart, the hashtag “#welcometopendermills” and an illustration showing a peculiar cast of characters and the edge of a “missing” poster: [Read more…] about Best New Graphic Novel: Dead Dog’s Bite
), maintained the same size (roughly 6” x 9”) and, for collectors, looked really nice all collected on a shelf. The smaller-than-floppy size wasn’t a huge drawback, because Sakai’s uncolored clean lines and lettering lent themselves to being resized while retaining the beauty of the art. With the paperback editions kept perpetually in print, these were the most convenient way to collect the series.