Verfluchen Sie die geschwärzte Sonne.

And so, summer arrives. Not the best of times to be an inhabitant of this city. It (the City) carries on with its noisy existence. I see traffic buzzing up and down the road; pneumatic jackhammers chewing up the macadam; the ice-cream vendor half-heartedly pushing his cart down the lane; the snot-nosed rugrats in the servants’ quarter behind my office, crying out for their mother, or just crying out in sheer frustration at the inferno building up beneath their chubby toes.

But I hear none of this. Not a whimper or squeak. The sun and the heat kill all sound, turning the outside world into a shimmery, gooey, Dali-esque vista.

And here we are, sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of our office (yes, I know it’s Sunday. I’m a workaholic. I break out into hives if I don’t get to sit at my office desk for at least 4 hours a day), trying to ignore the little furry army of dogs that we have scurrying about here.

I didn’t really want to be here today (for a change). Was thinking penne with bacon at The Big Chill, and a banana daiquiri or two at a friend’s place. Now thinking, “Emerging Trends in Indian Law”. Bah.

But since we’re not particularly interested in emerging trends et al, primarily because it’s too damn hot to work properly, we’re sitting pretty in an empty office and reading a most interesting graphic novel series.

It’s called ‘Y-The Last Man’, and I agree with a blurb on one of the cover pages – this one’s a movie just waiting to be made. In short, it’s about a plague which wipes out all creatures with the Y-chromosome. Well, not all. The main protagonist, a Houdini-wannabe named Yorick, and his monkey, Ampersand, survive the slaughter. The story begins immediately post the plague, and runs for 60 issues, during which Yorick (who wants to scoot to Oz to find his girlfriend) and Ampersand (generally horny chimp), hide and escape from many estrogen fueled, chainsaw/assault rifle-wielding, er, women, half of whom want to do him, while the other half want to do him in.

Your basic, cheesy, post-Apocalyptic storyline. But executed and drawn extremely tastefully, so run out and grab your copy NOW, before it goes out of print. Or download it, like I have.

(Thanks a ton to Joe Hill for pointing the way to this one. Oh, and while we’re on the topic of graphic novels, try out Joe’s ‘Locke & Key’. This one’s pretty neat too.)