Katak

Born into the rich, idiosyncratic universe that Gilbert Hernandez has been building across decades of Love and Rockets, Katak made their debut in 2016's Love and Rockets: New Stories #8 — a Modern Age arrival in one of alternative comics' most celebrated ongoing sagas. Fantagraphics has been the home for this character's eleven catalogued appearances across both Love and Rockets and New Stories, placing Katak in the orbit of vivid company: Isla, Lumina, Animus, Tonta, and Trix populate these same pages, the kind of eclectic cast that makes a Hernandez comic feel like a world unto itself. If you're drawn to literary, artist-driven comics that reward close attention and defy easy categorization, following Katak's thread through Gilbert's ever-expanding tapestry is exactly the kind of discovery that reminds you why Love and Rockets has mattered for so long.