Space Relic Hunters
Space Relic HuntersWriter: Sylvain Runberg
Artist: Grun
Translator: Dan Christensen
Localization, Design, Editing: Mike Kennedy
Letterer: Chris Northrop
Publisher: Magnetic Press
Publication Date: March 2026
Space Relic Hunters, which gets an English translation this month from publisher Magnetic Press, is at its core a space opera deconstruction. At least that’s how I read it. On the surface, it perhaps dances lightly on the line between deconstruction and sincere, as many of the best deconstructions do.
But consider: the book (and the cover, above) features what looks like a classic space opera sort of trio. A leading man, an attractive rogue, a third character who might be a droid or something. You know, the usual. But it’s not long into the book before it’s made suddenly, violently clear that we are not, in fact, doing the usual dynamics. That leading man is a virgin, and instead of sparks flying between the guy and the girl here, she’s actually going to get drunk and tease him for his total lack of sexual experience, let alone prowess.
And that’s not the only misdirect. Far from it, but to get too deep into any of the other surprises in this svelte 124-page graphic novel would be to risk spoiling some of the excellent surprises that propel the plot rapidly forward, making this one of the fastest graphic novels I’ve read all year. But I will just broadly say that it is one of those sci-fi stories that knows (and evidently loves) the tropes of the genre so well, that it’s able to effortlessly subvert them, taking its characters and stories into more interesting places.
The credit for the script there goes to Sylvain Runberg, whose crisp, often-funny dialouge gets a translation in this edition from Dan Christensen. And the end product is a book filled with pristine banter that feels natural, but also keeps the reader oriented to the complexities of the plot.
But the real star here, as you can see from these preview pages, is the intricate sci-fi artwork from artist Grun. This book features some of the best science fiction cartooning I’ve seen in some time. It’s got great space ship chases, massive battles, fun character reaction shots, and a cadre of gross aliens to throw its more recognizable protagonists up against.
Grun’s work is also clearly in the lineage of genre heavyweights, and his countrymen, Mœbius and Caza, whose own fantastic somewhat-recent translation, Arkadi and the Lost Titan, I wrote about last year. Like those masters, Grun’s storytelling is intricate and complex, yet it maintains the clarity and verve to keep the story clear while pacing it just as fast as the starships whizzing around the excellent spacescapes on each page.
While the ideas in Space Relic Hunters are not of the Dune-owing sort of mind-expanding psychedelic-variety, they are very much aware of them, and that’s part of the point of the book. To say anymore would be to risk spoilers, so if it’s not yet clear, I’ll simply re-iterate that this book gets my highest recommendation. It’s fun, and surprising, and armed with top-tier sci-fi comics storytelling.
Space Relic Hunters is out this month via Magnetic Press
Read more great reviews from The Beat!
