I just finished reading Blame! by Nihei Tsutomu. It’s a cult classic cyberpunk comic from the 90s and it is absolutely beautiful. It takes place in the distant, undated future in a geometrically expanding city controlled by a sentient, digital network. The network was developed to be controlled by people with the correct transhuman genes, but after millenia of chaos and decay these people are rare or possibly extinct. All human beings without the networking genes are recognized by the system as unauthorized vermin and are subject to termination. Most of them have been reduced to post-literate cyber tribes scavenging to survive. There is no way into the city and no way out. The protagonist is on a quest to change that by finding someone with the genetic code that will let them access and control the urban network.

It’s haunting and violent and the artwork is mindblowing. Mindblowing. There are almost no recurring characters and there is almost no dialogue. It’s ten volumes and even when it’s confusing it’s completely mesmerizing. I also have to give it extra love for having some truly cool and very active female characters.

So if you like sci fi and sequential art. Reaaaad ittttt.