PRIDE MONTH 2025! Earlier this year at Broken Frontier I reviewed our 2025 ‘Six to Watch’ creator Rein Lee’s comic My Taxidermy Angel declaring it to be “incredibly confident early work from a new voice destined to make a huge mark on the medium.” It was simply that good. The kind of work that you can’t quite believe can come in such a fully-formed package from such a relatively new voice. We are returning to Lee’s self-published output today with a look at their short comic Tidal Waves, a queer love story that is unafraid to tackle some extremely difficult themes. A content warning to begin, then, given that domestic violence is depicted in these pages.
Tidal Waves follows the converging stories of two women in a toxic relationship. What makes Lee’s approach to this tale so absorbing is the format they use to tell it. We see events from the differing and very personal perspectives of the two protagonists Sua and Harin. But, rather than interweaving these viewpoints, Lee uses a flipbook format with each half of the comic being narrated by one of the two, before their stories eventually come together in the centre-spread.
It’s a difficult read, with one of the two characters trapped in a cycle of abuse that has manifested itself in their relationship, while the other has a history of dealing with extreme homophobic behaviour and subsequent ostracisation. Lee deals with these themes with nuance and sensitivity while still providing a narrative that is unflinching in its portrayals of the stark realities of both women’s experiences.
Lee adds extra resonance to their conflicting experiences by mirroring page layouts in both sections. It gives each account a certain emotional symmetry while at the same time emphasising the disparities between them too. There’s some remarkable use of lettering effects to underline the intensity of key scenes, and colour is so carefully applied to create a feeling of the overwhelming and the claustrophobic. Tidal Waves is a deeply powerful piece of short storytelling that shows great formal understanding. Again, keep an eye out on Rein Lee. We told you they are a creator to watch. We weren’t wrong.
Rein Lee • Self-published, £8.00
Review by Andy Oliver
