ApocalyptiGirl: An Aria for the End Times

Andrew MacLean wrote and drew this 2015 Dark Horse graphic novel. Its post-apocalyptic setting follows Aria and her cat, Jelly Beans, through an overgrown city in search of a powerful ancient relic.

The book keeps its cast small and its action direct. That scale lets the central relationship and the ruined environment carry much of the story's emotional weight.

MacLean turns end-times imagery into a compact character adventure. The world's destruction is not treated as an excuse to forget the daily need for companionship.

Its brisk design also makes a familiar premise feel playful and personal. The imagined future has danger, but it is full of color and movement.

The relic gives the journey an object of desire whose power is difficult to judge from the ruined world's fragments. The quest joins a personal mission to the unknown history of the fallen civilization.

The setting leaves traces of civilization beneath new growth. Survival means navigating both inherited technology and the transformed ecology around it.

MacLean's bold line and bright color separate figures clearly from broken structures and vegetation. The action reads with the snap of an animated adventure.

The visual contrast between energetic characters and a quiet, empty city makes the world feel abandoned without making the comic inert.