All throughout July we’re crowdsourcing an Extra Eisners Reading List from comics journalists and critics. Each weekday throughout the month, we’ll post a new pick we would have liked to have seen nominated for an Eisner. There are so many great comics, it’s impossible for the Eisners to recognize them all. This list is to honor and diversify the pool of work praised by the industry.

Today’s pick comes from David Harper of Sktchd and the Off Panel Podcast…enjoy!

I love watercolors.

I’m not even sure why. Perhaps it’s that they remind me of my childhood, of sitting in art class, trying to bring a vista to life, marveling as the liquid on the brush meets paper to make magic. Maybe it’s just because it looks cool as hell. But I’ve always been a mark for artists who utilize this method of painting, as it seems unforgiving and undesirable in the wrong hands – say, those of eight-year-old David Harper – and wondrous in the right ones.

Like, say, Alex Alice’s. The French cartoonist behind Castle in the Stars, the graphic novel series at First Second that follows a collection of adventurers as they race to master a substance called aether and become the first to the Moon and beyond, is a unique talent. Few people would be able to deliver a story that could most easily be described as “what if Hayao Miyazaki and Jules Verne collaborated?” and live up to that kind of buildup. And yet, Alice does, and does so in brilliant fashion.

While his writing is exquisite and imaginative, both in a micro and macro scale, it’s really Alice’s art that helps make Castle in the Stars not just a fun, impressive romp, but an instant classic just waiting to become a sensation. Whether you’re talking the gorgeous, unreal splashes the cartoonist utilizes from time to time to show sweeping landscapes and the vastness of space or his potent, lively character work, Alice is a modern master of storytelling in the comic form.

His gifts at delivering dense pages with perfect clarity is unrivaled, and that is essential to something like the 2019 chapter of Castle in the Stars – subtitled The Knights of Mars – working as well as it does. It’s a thin tome, with just 54 pages to its name, but because of the oversized nature of these volumes and how much Alice packs into each page (for just one example, the average amount of panels per page on the third through fifth pages of the book is a robust ten), he can deliver a tremendous amount of story. That’s tough to do, as it isn’t a long walk from “dense” to “unreadable.” But Alice excels at it, and it helps this book get where it needs to go.

And yes, the watercolors. Amidst all of those other pluses, the lively cartooning, the dense layouts, the stunning splashes, you have the watercolors giving each and every element a dreamy yet grounded feel. The watercolors are almost a character unto themselves, giving this world life in the most vivacious way imaginable. From a line art and storytelling standpoint, Alice is a master, with The Knights of Mars being a pitch perfect showcase of those gifts.

But when you layer in the watercolors, he almost becomes a class of one, a cartoonist with visions of grandeur and a reality that’s lusher than our own, with the ability to deliver upon those dreams. I guess what I’m trying to say is Alex Alice is pretty dang good at what he does. But I’m biased.

Because I really do love watercolors. -David Harper

David Harper is the founder and owner of Sktchd, and the host of the Off Panel Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter at @slicefriedgold.

Alex Alice has a decentralized web presence but you can learn more about Castle in the Stars on this site.

Visit the full Extra Eisners Reading List!

Check out the official Eisner Nominations for 2020.