Parallel Lives #[nn]

Olivier Schrauwen's Parallel Lives arrives from Fantagraphics with a cover that immediately signals something unsettling and dreamlike — a dozen disembodied faces, rendered in soft pinks and mauves against a hazy blue sky, drift and cluster like untethered identities. The varied expressions and skin tones across those floating visages suggest a meditation on selfhood, multiplicity, and the uncanny spaces between human connection. Schrauwen's precise linework and muted palette make this one of the more visually arresting releases Fantagraphics put out in 2018.