All The Living
Writer/Artist: Roman Muradov
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Publication Date: February 2026
CONTENT WARNING: CONTAINS MENTIONS OF SUICIDE
What happens when we die? That question and the concept of life after death provides almost limitless potential for storytellers. All The Living, the latest graphic novel by Roman Muradov, is no exception. Muradov creates an land of the dead for late stage capitalism. One that offers nothing and only where each possibility just gets worse. The book’s bleak outlook offers little hope for anyone reading it.
After committing suicide, the nameless protagonist wakes up in the afterlife and is offered two choices. The first option is return to the land of the living as a ghost as you died. The second option would be to return as a living person. Both possibilities get decided by a random lottery.
That the lead gets returned to life is no surprise. But what life does she return to? One where the ghost of the life she just ended stays home while she returns to a life of drudgery in late stage capitalism. She returns to a job that is just pushing a button, and comes home to eat tomato soup every night. The only variety is an occasional trip to the library to pick up books. It’s not much of a life and her ghost self only seems to encourage her to continue it.
Even the afterlife of All the Living is a cruel place. Hell refuses to keep souls there. Demons spend their eternal existence mostly waiting for each new person to arrive or occasionally taking up hobbies. They return souls as ghosts doomed to only roam the place of their death and ignorance by the living. Only the protagonist can see the dead because of her own experiences. Damnation in All the Living isn’t burning for eternity but a truly lonely existence.
Few books look and read as bleak All the Living. The Russian-born Muradov injects a very Eastern European brand of humor and look into his story. The occasional humor comes out in a very dark streak. A character who dies while having sex comes back as a naked ghost. People who died on the job get stuck in their offices. Cityscapes look stark, adhering to a brutalist look appropriate for Eastern Europe. Wispy lines turn figures in the living world into ghost like entities. Drab beiges, greens, and grays cover each page. Occasionally there is a pop of red but he so desaturates it so that the color becomes ominous. How better to represent the oppressive, repetitive world these characters live in?
As cold and oppressive as this book is though, there is a real command of comics craft. The design of every page, each color choice, and the linework bleakly creates that oppressive feeling. It does possess a dream like quality. One has to admire the ability with which Muradov effectively communicates how lonely life (and life after death) can be. This is far from light, breezy reading but one certainly has to admire his artistry in expressing the loneliness of modern existence.
All the Living is out now via Fantagraphics
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