What to read this weekend: The friends you make in the apocalypse

I’ve always imagined that, if I were to end up a lone human alive in some post-apocalyptic wasteland, I’d eventually befriend other solitary animals of different species and we’d have each others’ backs in the daily fight for survival. Everybody thinks about these things… right? In any case, that’s kind of the situation Will Collins, the middle-aged protagonist of The Way, finds himself in, in the year 2048, accompanied by a raven named Peau and a cat named Cassie. Much of humankind has been wiped out by waves of disease, but he — isolated at a Buddhist retreat center — survived. And he’s one of very few people older than 30 or so to have made it.

When Will gets a message from a former mentor asking him to transport a possible cure, he sets out on a road trip through the ruins of the US, facing hostile environmental conditions and hostile humans, but also expanding his odd little family in the process. Will is a narrator that describes things vividly and often philosophically, making for a story that’s both tender and brutal. It pulls you in right away, and the spiritual tone (with a little humor sprinkled in) keeps things from becoming entirely bleak. This is a post-apocalyptic novel that even someone who’s burnt out on post-apocalyptic novels can appreciate.

Gus Moreno, author of the (very good, must-read) 2021 horror novel This Thing Between Us, has teamed up with artist Jakub Rebelka for a new comic series following an exorcist with unconventional methods and the disgraced priest who has been made his apprentice. In an Instagram post ahead of its release, Moreno said of the series, “If you ever saw an exorcism movie and thought, this could use more Tarantino references, this is the comic for you.” Yeah, I’m in.

The first of its five issues was released this week, diving right in with a murder, an exorcism and a strange hospital visit. It’s mostly setting up the story that has yet to unfold — cuing us in on Father Manuel Barrera’s downfall and reassignment to Puerto Cristina, the world’s southernmost city, as a trainee under Father Merrick Stygian — but it’s definitely got me intrigued. I really like the art style, especially how grotesque the characters’ facial features are at times.