It’s not a graphic novel or even a comic, but we feel the good ship Grovel has fair reason to veer dramatically off-course into the relatively uncharted waters of prose, because this particular novel takes the superhero genre out for a spin. Billed as “an intelligent, grown-up exploration of love, loss, crime-fighting, and the obsessive ambition to take over the world,” Austin Grossman’s debut novel aims to humanise the superhero, in the footsteps of Watchmen and its ilk.
We can’t tell you whether it’s any good because we haven’t read it (yet), but if you’re in the UK there’s a special extra treat – your version of the book comes with a cover and full-colour bonus pictures showing what the story might look like had it been a comic rather than a regular novel.