THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2026! It’s perhaps a strange thing to consider but that same phenomenon of exciting collaborative “team-ups” that we’re so used to seeing in whatever we’re defining as mainstream comics these days is a rare thing indeed in the small press world. So seeing two favourite creators like Chrissy Williams (I Know the Way Out, Golden Rage) and Lucy Sullivan (Barking, Shelter) coming together on a comic feels like quite the event.
At just 8 pages Please is of minicomic length with all that entails for a reviewer. It’s always a difficult task to cover such a short narrative without analysis entering spoiler territory. So in broad stroke terms Please is a dark, twisted take on the fairy tale genre. Or perhaps we should say a dark take on the sanitised fairy tale formula that we have now. Or a re-creation of the gruesome horror of its progenitors.
Anyway, take your pick, but what we have here begins in the Bavarian woods in the early 13th century with a woman burying yet another one of her children. From there it takes in witch-like motifs and lost children tropes in a truly dark take on parenthood and the mother-child relationship. It’s heady stuff, macabre, and oddly claustrophobic for a story that takes place entirely outdoors.
Of course, Sullivan’s art builds up that sense of the ominous and the bleakly atmospheric. This may be some of her finest work to date with careful colour choices almost oozing sinister undertones and every panel feeling stiflingly tense in construction and presentation. All the while the different intonations of that titular single word providing the true terror of the piece. Deeply unsettling work with an eerie allure, this is another Thought Bubble must-buy.
Visit Lucy Sullivan’s online store here
Chrissy Williams (W), Lucy Sullivan (A) • Self-published
Review by Andy Oliver
Lucy Sullivan is at Table B3 in the Travelling Man Hall at Thought Bubble.
Chrissy Williams is at Table B5 in the Travelling Man Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2026 runs from November 9th-15th with the convention weekend taking place on the 14th-15th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2026 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster art by Núria Tamarit
