Written by Bill Watterson

Art by John Kascht

Andrews McNeel, out now

The kingdom is beset by mysteries, and everyone knows it. Living in terror, and sick of it, the King orders his knights head out and capture a Mystery once and for all. Years pass and at last, an exhausted knight returns with the first captured Mystery. Then the trouble really starts.

Watterson’s legendary status as the creator of Calvin and Hobbes is second only to what’s regarded as one of the best dismounts in modern creative history. Exhausted by endless fights with licensing rights, Watterson ended the strip perfectly and retired to study art and paint. Now, along with illustrator John Kascht, he’s returned and the result is very different and well worth the wait.

The Mysteries is a storybook, barely a thousand words long and told through a combination of those words and Kascht’s illustrations. Kascht is a remarkable artist and the style he’s found here is something between Norman Rockwell and medieval woodcut art. As the Mysteries are located, we see the kingdom shift into something similar to our world and Kascht’s art shifts with it. The stark grey, almost woodcut medieval style is replaced by a series of deliciously bleak anachronisms. Someone dressed like a bishop sipping a smoothie in their car. A bored museum curator next to a colossal painting. A wizard in a near modern lab. As the story evolves, the society follows suit and so does the art.

It’s only when you finish that you realise this creates a second story, one that doesn’t just tell you about how we change when we lose our sense of wonder but shows you why we need it. The art here, prose and line alike, is beautiful and carrying a knife behind its back. Mysteries help us evolve. Mysteries help us survive. Mysteries don’t need to do either of those things and the last pages here are the moment where these two storytellers close the book and look at you, smiling. The end isn’t hopeful for us but is for the universe and it clarifies my one nagging concern about the book. This isn’t two veterans railing against the modern world, it’s two artists railing against the creative industries being understood to death and what happens if that process ever concludes. It won’t, if books like this still exist.

Verdict: Cold, witty, funny and savagely smart. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

The Mysteries is out now.