PRIDE MONTH 2025! It will come as no surprise to anyone who is a regular visitor to Broken Frontier just how much of an amazing prospect I believe 2025 Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ creator Rein Lee to be. Lee has already featured in our Pride Month celebrations this year when I reviewed their experimental comic Tidal Waves here at the beginning of the month. While that was earlier work from them they have also more recently self-published a minicomic titled Sour Grapes (with a second page subtitle ‘An Asexual’s Worst Nightmare’) which is also a perfect fit for our coverage this June.
This is another very tactile offering with the comics pages of Sour Grapes sitting in the wrappings of a slightly larger-sized cover, giving the sensation on the initial page-turn that the reader is being transported into the mindset of the comic’s narrator in an almost confidential sense. In ten pages Lee introduces us to their unnamed focal character whose meditations on their asexuality, and their complex reflections on intimacy that come from that, take the form of graphic poetry.
Intense imagery that zooms in and out in terms of detail gives us a shifting perspective on their thoughts. It’s a swirling mix of metaphor and symbolism that allows Lee to speak to their readers on both literal and figurative levels. Two contrasting double-page spreads are especially of note. One displaying a yearning for the possibilities that companionship could bring, with scenes of an alternate life dancing around their current reality, is swiftly followed by another where the very thought of closeness becomes oppressive and overbearing.
Sour Grapes uses a mix of illustration, collage and digital art to create this very human story of solitude, loss and wistfulness. Lee’s lyrical words and now near trademark use of emotionally resonant colour combines to bring us another showcase for the practice of an artist who deserves the opportunity to have their work taken to much larger readerships. Publishers, please take note.
Rein Lee (W/A) • Self-published, £5.00
Review by Andy Oliver
