THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2025! KitsuneArt (aka, Lucia Fioretti) is no stranger to Broken Frontier readers or Thought Bubble. At Thought Bubble 2025 KitsuneArt will be part of the Very Tiny Comics Anthology profiled at Broken Frontier in late October; Thought Bubble 2024 saw Andy Oliver review the anthology Queer Knights edited by and with a story by KitsuneArt; and Thought Bubble 2023 saw Starlit Lovers, a slice-of-life collaboration between her and Lor Phoenix, reviewed again by Andy Oliver (much more Broken Frontier coverage of KitsuneArt here).
Through the Looking Glass is a much needed polemical near-future science fiction short comic on AI by the versatile artist. Right on the first page she tells us “This is a loose retelling of Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, a novel published in 1871 by Lewis Carroll.” This Looking Glass. though, is more cyberpunk dystopia than Victorian Age fantasy, with our heroine Alice backed up by hacker friends Snowdrop and Kitty (revealed in the endnotes to be named after Alice’s cats in the book).
KitsuneArt employs six double-page spreads to depict Alice’s descent into/battle with the AI that has taken over her world. Each is striking in design, but the spread where Alice is figuratively passing through the printed pages of Lewis Carroll’s novel connotes so much about the real life battle against AI. According to her the alternating black and white backgrounds of the spreads is meant to mimic the chessboard theme of the novel. Alice’s battle with the Red and White Queens from the novel also figures into the comic.
The art is highly detailed in the “reality” framing sequence while the AI main sequences have a definite surreal atmosphere as Alice is unsure if what she is experiencing is real or manipulated by the AI. The open layout gives KitsuneArt the chance for a vertigo-inducing array of poses as Alice alternately falls/fights her way through the hallucinations.
We highly recommend picking up a physical copy of Through the Looking Glass. The coloured ink and pink and purple highlights of our digital review copy should look even more spectacular in full risograph printing.
KitsuneArt (W/A) • Self-published, £10.00
Pre-order and pick-up at Thought Bubble
Review by Gary Usher
KitsuneArt will be sharing Table H7 with Cuterfaction (Alex Thompson) in Bubbleboy Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2025 runs from November 1oth-16th with the convention weekend taking place on the 15th-16th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2025 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster by Ng Yin Shian
