Skin & Earth by Lights
Series: Skin and Earth #1-6
Genre: Fantasy | Graphic Novel
Length: 200 pages
Published on 17th July 2018 by Dynamite Entertainment
Purchase: Amazon | TBD
Lights: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
eCopy recieved from NetGalley
The full collection of Lights’ masterwork is here! Based on Lights album of the same name, Skin&Earth is a story of a girl looking for hope in a hopeless world. Caught between romance and cults, gods and mortals, and just trying to find a good borscht, Enaia Jin is lead down a dark path by new lovers that reveals a twisted fantasy world and her own true nature. Set in a post-apocalyptic future ruled by the Tempest Corporation, the adventurous tale of loneliness, deceit and self-discovery that ties in with the 14-track corresponding album is compiled for the first time here with the complete comic book series and album in one epic interactive collected edition!Written and drawn by alt-pop phenomenon Lights.The collected edition includes:
-All 6 issues of Skin&Earth comic book
-Interactive ShareCodes to access the full album, music videos and other bonus content
-Links to exclusive merch
-Variant art from Jim Lee, Joby Harris, Derek Lewis, Gianna Rose and Matt Mitchell
-New bonus content
-Personal introduction from Lights
-Dustjacket and special cover
The first thing that made me want to read Skin & Earth was the cover as it really stood out to me.
And then I realised it was written by Lights! I saw her perform back in …possibly 2009 so I was super intrigued to see what she was creating almost ten years later.
The best thing about the GN is that Lights also created a full album to go along with it, and within the GN it tells you which song pairs with that section.
The full album is here on Spotify.
This helped to make you really immersed within the world as you could tell how the two went hand in hand and influenced each other. This was such an interesting way to approach music, art, and writing together.
As for the graphic novel itself. I really liked the world building; its a dystopian where the land is pretty much unlivable, its all toxic and killing many people.
The story follows Enaia who lives in the desolate outskirts whilst attending school in the wealthy capital. She’s also in somewhat of a relationship with someone she doesn’t know much about and he leads her astray.
Shortly after his betrayal Enaia has a premonition of meeting a mysterious white haired woman. I really liked her design as she felt like such a contrast to Enaia, she’s bold and unruly, and ends up leading her even more astray.
(Whilst also brining the bravery out of Enaia too, encouraging her to get the revenge she deserves.)
To a whole different world in fact.
Its once the story takes places here that I enjoyed it the most as not only do we start to get some more answers and explanations to everything, but we also get to see more creativity in how that world looks.
My only real complaint about the graphic novel, which feels super harsh, is that at times the art doesn’t hold up as well in some places. I noticed it was often the faces that slip a little in their quality. I know this is completely made by just Lights so it feels rude to acknowledge that but it did create a bit of a disconnect.
But overall I loved it. Its covers such a wide range of topics such as environmentalist, finding your true self, abusive/controlling relationships. There is a lot of symbolism in here and given this has all come from Lights is amazing.
It also gave me the chance to listen to her older stuff which gave me such a fun trip down memory lane.
and yes, everyone needs someone to encourage them like this haha.
Northern Plunder 
Well that’s an interesting cover if I ever saw one!
Ooooh, definitely adding it to my list!
I’ve never heard of this series, I may have to check it out!
It sounds like you were able to mostly love this graphic novel. It’s cool that you’ve seen the artist/creator before, and then you get to try her work later down the line. I love a good dystopian and the world building sounds promising too. A bit of a shame about the art sometimes being a bit lackluster in some places, but the cover is stunning and some of those images look great ^.^